As has been widely reported, Patrick O’Keeffe took home the $20,000 Story Prize on Wednesday night, for The Hill Road. The other finalists were Jim Harrison for The Summer He Didn’t Die and Maureen F. McHugh for Mothers & Other Monsters. More at the Guardian.
Driss Benzekri, the man who spent 17 years as a political prisoner under the reign of King Hassan, and who is now the head of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission, visited Washington this week. The commission had been charged with documenting abuses of the “years of lead” and with making recommendations. Its report was released to the Moroccan public earlier this year.
“In the course of our work, we were able to shed light on the fate of 742 persons who disappeared for different reasons. We called for compensation for them, as well as 10,000 other victims. Then we proposed a series of reforms to the constitution to ensure the separation of powers; and we recommended that the independence of the judiciary be inscribed in the constitution, and an end to legal immunity for security officials who commit human rights abuses. The main objective of our recommendations was to promote and protect all forms of civil liberties. Then we gave the report to His Majesty and it was made public.”
The young king, who took over from his father in 1999, immediately embraced the report and its calls for compensation. Many former political prisoners appeared in public town hall meetings and on television, telling their stories in a unique form of catharsis. This is unprecedented in the Arab world.
This, of course, is real, tangible progress, and I think it’s a huge step forward for Morocco (combined with the family law reform of last year, this really puts the country in the right track). There’s also clearly a political will, on all sides of this issue, to finally address the dossier.
But, and there is a but, the report leaves open two questions. Firstly, I’ve seen press reports that suggest that there are cases that have not been investigated, and the worry now is that they probably won’t be. Secondly, although many of those responsible have now passed on, others are alive and kicking, leading a life of relative ease, while their victims have to live with the horrors of the past.
“Tomorrow is Too Far,” a new short story by Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie, appears in the current issue of Prospect. Here is the opening paragrah:
It was the last summer you spent in Nigeria, the summer before your parents’ divorce, before your mother swore you would never again set foot in Nigeria to see your father’s family, especially not Grandmama. You remember the heat of that summer clearly, even now, thirteen years later, the way Grandmama’s yard felt like a steamy bathroom, a yard with so many trees that the telephone wire was tangled in leaves and different branches touched one another and sometimes mangoes appeared on cashew trees and guavas on mango trees. The thick mat of decaying leaves was soggy under your bare feet. Yellow-bellied bees buzzed around you, your brother Nonso and your cousin Dozie’s heads. Grandmama let only your brother Nonso climb the trees to shake a loaded branch, although you were a better climber than he was. Fruits would rain down, avocados and cashews and guavas, and you and your cousin Dozie would fill old buckets with fruit.
Read the rest here.
This week I’m giving away a copy of James Meek’s The People’s Act of Love. Set in 1919 Siberia, the novel follows a gulag escapee who unwittingly wanders into a village where followers of a mystical Christian sect cohabit with Czech soldiers desparate to get home from the war.
The fifth (yes, fifth) person to correctly answer this question gets the book: What is the name of the Siberian town in which the story is set? Please use the subject line “Meek” in your email, and please also include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.
Update: Pete A. from Joliet, Illinois has won the book.
I’ve received word that RAWI, the Arab American Writers’ association, is organizing a literary contest for 2006. Short stories, essays, memoir, drama, vignettes, and prose poetry will be considered. The deadline is March 20, 2006, and the competition will be judged by Joseph Geha and Sahar Kayyal. Send your (new, unpublished) entry to Alice Nashashibi, 95 Mercedes Way, San Francisco, CA 94217. Good luck to all.