Month: January 2006
The January issue of Words Without Borders is now available, and the focus this month is literature from Egypt. Fiction, non-fiction and poetry by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, Mahmoud Al Wardani, Na’am Al-Baz, Haggag Hassan Oddoul, Salwa Bakr, Mohamed Makhzangi, Tamer Fathy and Iman Mersal.
Here is the opening to Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s “The Veiler of All Deeds,” an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Thieves in Retirement, which will be published by Syracuse University Press later this year.
People are delighted—in the normal course of events—when they hear the news that a pious man has been caught red-handed mired in some wrongful act, whether a sin divinely prohibited, a scandalous act undermining the gravity and might of his religiosity, or an error that strips from him the cloak of infallibility to expose him as an ordinary person who doesn’t carry the halo of sainthood after all. Perhaps they react this way because his commitment to virtue has been wounding their consciences, perhaps it’s a question of seeking psychological equilibrium. It’s a relief to be able to rely on the sins of a man who appears close to God in coming to terms with their own sins which they suspect are quite appalling, and they can think optimistically about committing other wrongs that are no less atrocious. Or maybe it’s because people generally find it hard to put up with individuals who lay it on thick when it comes to virtue and commitment–their own as well as what they advise others to acquire.
Like Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, the characters in Thieves in Retirement all inhabit the same apartment building, thus providing the author with a convenient cross-section of society.
The guest editor for this special issue of Words Without Borders is none other than Chip Rossetti, of the American University in Cairo Press. Read his introduction here.
Nextbook, the online magazine of Jewish culture, has started a new series of columns, to appear on Thursdays. The first is by Israeli author Etgar Keret, who writes about what it’s like to be an atheist and have a sister who converts to Orthodox Judaism.
Nineteen years ago, in a small wedding hall in Bnei Brak, my older sister died, and she now lives in the most Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. I spent a recent weekend at her house. It was my first Shabbat there. I often go to visit her in the middle of the week but that month, with all the work I had and my trips abroad, it was either Saturday or nothing. “Take care of yourself,” my wife said as I was leaving. “You’re not in such great shape now, you know. Make sure they don’t talk you into turning religious or something.” I told her she had nothing to worry about. Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I’m cool I don’t need anyone, and when I’m feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there’s never been a god that could fill it and there never will be. So even if a hundred evangelist rabbis pray for my lost soul, it won’t do them any good. I have no God, but my sister does, and I love her, so I try to show Him some respect.
Like much of Keret’s work, the essay is both funny and poignant. You can read the essay here.
The LBC, a book blog cooperative of which I’m a member, is due to announce its Winter pick. Tune in on Monday morning for the announcement of the winner, and stick around for the rest of the week to find out which other books were considered.
This week, I’d like to give away a copy of Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles. Edited by Samantha Dunn and Juliana Ortale, and with an introduction by Janet Fitch, the anthology features short fiction by Aimee Bender, Carol Muske Dukes, Lisa Glatt, Dylan Landis, Lisa Teasley, and Rachel Resnick, among others.
The first person to correctly answer this question wins the book: What is the title of Lisa Glatt’s acclaimed first novel? Please use the subject line “Women on the Edge” in your email, and please also include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.
Update: Kimberly L. from San Carlos gets the book.
Over at Poets and Writers, Joe Woodward goes in search of David Foster Wallace, and finds that:
Everything I know about DFW (even his wanton use of acronyms in place of proper nouns) I know secondhand—through his books, a few printed interviews, reviews, and critical studies. It’s not that I haven’t tried to pose some questions directly to the writer himself, to ferret out a few insights from the man Sven Birkerts—in a review of Infinite Jest for the Atlantic Monthly in 1996—called “a wild-card savant.” No, my search to find the real DFW has been impeded by agent and publicist alike: I’ve been stonewalled. Whether he is “publicity shy,” as his publicist contends, or whether he’s weaving a web of literary mystique about himself, I do not know. And, it seems more and more likely, I never will.
You can read the full article here.
According to Jeune Afrique, a young Moroccan entrepreneur named Nabil Alami (no relation) has started an online site where the faithful can purchase live lambs for the sacrificial rites of Eid. Compare weights, sizes, and colors, without having to trek to the souk and deal with the smells and sounds of hundreds of bleating sheep. Plus, you can choose your delivery date, which means you don’t have to keep, feed, and clean after the animal for the days leading up to the feast. Demand was so high that the farm he had contracted with sold out. Now he wants to expand his business to include celebrations for weddings and births, etc.
Or, you know, you can just donate the Eid money to charity.