Books in Review
What does it mean to be a migrant of Mus-
lim origin in the West? A timely medita-
tion on immigration, prejudice, and social
categorization, “Muslim” interrogates the
historical, religious, and political baggage
behind Muslim identity.
Originally published in French in 2005,
“Muslim” is the latest text to be translated
into English in a trilogy that traces the nar-
rator Rahman-Elohim’s rites of passage as
the daughter of a harki, a Muslim Algerian
soldier who supported French Algeria dur-
ing the Algerian War of Independence.
At the heart of the story is an unrelent-
ing desire to return to origins. The quest
to return “home,” Rahmani shows, is ardu-
ous, painful, and at times heartbreaking.
It necessitates a conscious effort to decon-
struct oppressive ideologies and “all the
labels that clung to us like crabgrass to the
earth... Arabs, immigrants, exiles, Mus-
lim.” The protagonist’s poignant reflection
on the events that lead to her confinement
in a desert jail reveals the intellectual, emo-
tional, and spiritual challenges of liberating
her identity from the traps of essentialism.
Despite its lugubrious tone, an air of opti-
mism pervades the novel as the first-person
narrative voice moves back and forth in
time between Rahman-Elohim’s present-
day imprisonment and her warm child-
hood memories.
Rahmani interweaves Algeria’s layered
colonial history and the predicament of
displaced harkis in France, transform-
ing the sociopolitical topology of French
Algeria into a cultural memory that the
protagonist seeks to recover. She exqui-
sitely blends autofiction and oral tradition
to foreshadow Rahman-Eloise’s explora-
tion of the link between past, present, and
future. Her writing is swift, provocative, yet
poetic. The genre-bending prose further
showcases Rahmani’s eloquence in the art
of storytelling. She adds a dash of magi-
cal realism to her otherwise serious nar-
rative, weaving together myths from the
Quran and Kabyle folktales and fairy tales
passed down orally through generations.
The antiphony between the oral and writ-
ten elements serves as a tool through which
Rahman-Elohim reclaims her native lan-
guage, Tamazigh, simultaneously divesting
the terms “Muslim,” “immigrant,” “harki,” o f
their salient, pejorative connotations.
Rahmani’s unapologetic writing joins a
particular tradition of Arab francophone
literature, recalling the revolutionary prose
of Assia Djebar and Abdelkebir Khatibi.
Intellectually hefty and audacious, “Muslim”
is essential reading.
Neriman Kuyucu
University of Missouri, ColumbiaMahmoud Shukair
Praise for the Women
of the FamilyTrans. Paul Starkey. Northampton,
Massachusetts. Interlink Books. 2019.
240 pages.Praise for the Women of the Family is a
character study of a Palestinian clan set
after the 1967 war. Women in the novel
are objects of reflection and vehicles for
cultural change. Two of the patriarch’s
sons, Falihan and Muhammad al-Asghar,
narrate the story, with interjections fromal-Asghar’s controlling mother, Wadha.
Wadha, a repository of tradition, shames
other women for infractions like donning
a bathing suit at the beach. The environ-
ment is explicitly gendered and hierarchi-
cal in Wadha’s mind—the ocean is “a male
that leads women astray” and “the fire
was a female.” Meanwhile, Muhammad
al-Asghar works in a divorce court, where
he meets his future wife, Sanaa. He reflects
on the changing societal attitude toward
women’s clothing as Sanaa begins to wear
pants in public.
Al-Asghar’s thoughtful sections contrast
with Falihan’s defensiveness. A smuggler,
Falihan is paralyzed from the waist down
after being shot by the intended fiancé of
his wife. His willingness to trade with the
occupiers and pay family members cheap
wages leaves Falihan wealthy but alienated.
The family receives letters from a third son,
‘Atwan, who abandons his wife and child
in Palestine to marry a woman in Brazil.
Another son is imprisoned, and a fifth trav-
els to Kuwait in search of employment, as
the occupation has decimated job prospects
for Palestinians unwilling to work for Israe-
lis. The voices of these sons resonate with
confusion and excitement as they process
the disruption of tradition by leaving or
staying, protesting or assimilating.
The novel’s moments of grief are strik-
ing. The occupation upended lives, and the
reality of this loss is strongest in the details:
“People abandoned their homes.... They
left their bedrooms with the curtains low-
ered, and they departed, taking with them
only a few belongings and an excess of
memories.” The upheaval is accompanied
by loosening strictures on the behavior of
the clan’s sons and daughters. Al-Asghar
refuses to marry again when Sanaa proves
infertile. He disobeys his father’s wishes and
quits his government job to pursue work as
a writer.
The old ways and places are gone, and
the inheritors of Palestine make new paths
in the aftermath.
Sara Ramey
University of Arkansas94 W LT SUMMER 2019