Laila Lalami

I quite enjoyed this post by Pico Iyer, in which he writes about his journey to a simpler life, a life of contentment.

I had been lucky enough at that point to stumble into the life I might have dreamed of as a boy: a great job writing on world affairs for Time magazine, an apartment (officially at least) on Park Avenue, enough time and money to take vacations in Burma, Morocco, El Salvador. But every time I went to one of those places, I noticed that the people I met there, mired in difficulty and often warfare, seemed to have more energy and even optimism than the friends I’d grown up with in privileged, peaceful Santa Barbara, Calif., many of whom were on their fourth marriages and seeing a therapist every day. Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either.

So — as post-1960s cliché decreed — I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I’d noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of haiku I’d imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live in the vicinity of Kyoto, in a two-room apartment that makes my old monastic cell look almost luxurious by comparison. I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media — and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.

You can read his entire piece here.

Gaiutra Bahadur reviewed my novel, Secret Son, for the New York Times this weekend. The paper ran a long excerpt from the first chapter. There are also reviews in the Brooklyn Rail (by Paul Charles Griffin) and in the summer issue of the Harvard Review (by Laura Albritton).

While I was in New York last month, I did an interview with Ed Champion for The Bat Segundo Show; that podcast is now available here.

Despite the unusually gloomy weather here in Santa Monica, I feel like summer is already here. I’m done with my book tour, I met two pressing deadlines, and my last class of the quarter at UC Riverside was yesterday. So I’ve had some time to catch up on the news and especially on the coverage of Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo, most of which seemed to me to be encomiums. (And I say this as someone who likes Obama. But liking Obama and agreeing with him on Middle East policy are two different things.)

It simply isn’t true, as I’ve heard some commentators say, that this was the first time that a sitting U.S. president quoted from the Qur’an, invoked Palestine and the plight of the Palestinians, or promised to stop Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The main difference, it seems to me, was one of style, not substance. Obama brings his considerable charisma and his compelling life story to this speech. He was exceedingly careful in his choice of words and avoided any direct confrontation. Another advantage for him is the fact that people everywhere, both here in the United States and in the Middle East, are so relieved not to have to listen to the bellicose and idiotic words of George W. Bush anymore. This is why so many people paid so much attention to this speech.

One important test of this new approach, to my mind, is the settlements. Obama has already told Netanyahu that he wants a complete stop to Israeli settlements and that he won’t accept “natural growth” exceptions. If he can do that, then this speech will be remembered as a turning point; if he can’t, then it will go the way of all the speeches by the previous five administrations: nowhere.

Years ago, when I was an undergraduate student at Mohamed-V university, I was assigned Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. I remember very clearly reading that stunning first line (“You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you.”) and not being able to put down the book after that, despite having to reach for the dictionary so many times. That book resonated deeply with me for reasons that really didn’t become clear to me until a long time later. Yesterday, in my introduction to creative writing class at UC Riverside, my students and I discussed the opening chapter, “No-Name Woman.” This is how it closes:

The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family’s deliberately forgetting her. Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death. Always hungry, always needing, she would have to beg food from other ghosts, snatch and steal it from those whose living descendants give them gifts. She would have to fight the ghosts massed at crossroads for the buns a few thoughtful citizens leave to decoy her away from village and home so that the ancestral spirits could feast unharassed. At peace, they could act like gods, not ghosts, their descent lines providing them with paper suits and dresses, spirit money, paper houses, paper automobiles, chicken, meat, and rice into eternity essences delivered up in smoke and flames, steam and incense rising from each rice bowl. In an attempt to make the Chinese care for people outside the family, Chairman Mao encourages us now to give our paper replicas to the spirits of outstanding soldiers and workers, no matter whose ancestors they may be. My aunt remains forever hungry. Goods are not distributed evenly among the dead.

My aunt haunts me-her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, though not origamied into houses and clothes. I do not think she always means me well. I am telling on her, and she was a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water. The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute.

It was a useful chapter for our discussion of truth, whether in fiction or nonfiction.

Harper’s Scott Horton links to footage from an interview that General Petraeus gave to Fox News, in which he argued in favor of the release of the remaining photographs showing alleged prisoner abuse.  Says Horton:

Petraeus argued in favor of release, saying “Let’s lance this boil.” He feared that the damage from withholding the photos would be greater than that from releasing them, because it would fuel suspicions that the photos are worse than they are. General Ray Odierno took the opposing view, and Obama sided with Odierno, although my sources say this is strictly a timing decision, and that Obama fully intends ultimately to release the photos.

That last bit seems somewhat optimistic.  At Salon, Glenn Greenwald points out that Obama is actively supporting a new bill, sponsored by Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009.  Greenwald explains:

[This bill] literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.”  As long as the Defense Secretary certifies — with no review possible — that disclosure would “endanger” American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure.  The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely.  The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

If this is what the Obama administration calls transparency, can you imagine what obfuscation might look like?

Pakistani writers Daniyal Mueenuddin (author of the story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders) and Kamila Shamsie (author of, most recently, the novel Burnt Shadows) are the subject of a short piece by Rob Gifford at NPR. Take a listen.

Guess what? The Israeli police shut down the Palestinian Literature Festival again. This time, armed police showed up at the closing event, which was due to take place in the National Theater in Jerusalem. Fortunately, the director of the British Council stepped in and offered an auditorium for the panelists and audience. An Israeli friend tells me that this story has been under-reported in his country. Unsurprisingly, it’s been under-reported here, too.

The Telegraph reports that Major General Antonio Taguba, who authored the infamous report that exposed the abuse in Abu Ghraib and other prisons in 2004, has now revealed that there are photos of U.S. soldiers allegedly raping Iraqi prisoners. These photos were part of the initial set that became widely known a few years ago, but have never been released.

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it,” [Taguba said.]

In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.

Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

I think these photographs will come out eventually, whether with the permission of the Obama administration or without it. (Remember: the Taguba report and the abuse it documented became widely known thanks to the reporting of Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker and the people at Sixty Minutes.) This set of photographs will probably come to light, too. Yes, public sentiment will be inflamed. And it should be. But the truth always comes out in the end. And then people will direct some of their anger at Obama, the man who tried to stop the release of the photographs.

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The second annual Palestine Festival of Literature is taking place this week, with stops in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Jenin, al-Khalil, and Bethlehem. But the festival had a rough start: armed Israeli police shut down the opening night event, which was due to take place at the Palestinian National Theater in Jerusalem. The novelist and essayist Ahdaf Soueif, who started the festival last year, is quoted in this article:

“We stood in the early evening light, by the tables laden with books and food and flowers, nibbled at kofta and borek and laughed and chatted and introduced new friends to old. . . . Then we started moving towards the auditorium and I heard someone say quietly, ‘They’ve come.’

“Who?

“Looking around – and there they were, the men in the dark blue fatigues, with pack-type things strapped to their backs and machine-guns cradled in their arms. I had a moment of unbelief. Surely, even if they were coming to note everything we said and to make a show of strength they still wouldn’t come with their weapons at the ready like this? But then there were more of them, and more.”

Undeterred, Soueif and the other writers walked over to the French Cultural Center, where the panel was able to proceed without incident. You can watch some video footage here. The festival features panels, readings, and workshops by many different writers and artists, including Abdulrazak Gurnah, Claire Messud, Jamal Mahjoub, Michael Palin, Suheir Hammad, Raja Shehadeh, and Henning Mankel. You can watch Suheir Hammad read one of her poems in Ramallah.

I’ve been back for a few days now, but it seems all I’ve been doing is trying to catch up on all the work I had set aside before leaving, hence the lack of posting. The interview I did for KQED is now archived online. Recent reviews of Secret Son include pieces by Lara Killian in Popmatters and James Gibbons in Bookforum. An excerpt of my novel also appears in the Spring issue of the London-based Banipal magazine.