The first piece of writing is an excerpt from a novel, ‘My Story is Too Long To Tell’, by Hanan al-Shaykh, the author of the wonderful short story collection, ‘I Sweep The Sun Off Rooftops’. Hanan al-Shaykh’s mother is the central character of her new novel, forced to marry at an age when she’s still interested in sweets. The excerpt though is concerned with the background before this, the impoverished circumstances of the family that lead the young girl, her brother and her mother to be at the mercy of male relatives who can ultimately decide their fate.

‘The Last Communist’ is an excerpt from ‘The World of Saddam Hussein’ by Mahdi Haydar. Saddam Hussein himself appears in the piece, the victim of more than one assassination attempt. His men find a communist ringleader, a man opposed to the Ba’athists, and force him to make a false confession on TV. Years later, living in Paris, he remembers the men who died as a result of this confession. Arriving back at his apartment building, he is attacked by assassins and beheaded. ‘The Last Communist’ is a fascinating look into modern Iraqi history.

‘Clay’ by Syrian writer Samar Yazbek is another novel excerpt. Men have been sent out by their leader to hunt down a woman. The background to the events is not fully explained. The man who wants the woman found appears to be very important, possibly the leader of a country. I found I wanted to know more about what was going on, and more too about the fate of the woman who is found. She has some papers in her possession which have an unknown significance. Other things too are hinted at. This is a tantalizing glimpse of a novel that is sadly not available in the English language world.

There are excerpts from Vénus Khoury-Ghata’s ‘A House at the Edge of Tears’ where a strict father makes such a song and dance about his young son masturbating that the neighbours gets to hear about it, but the rumour transforms into a story that he tried to have sex with his sister. Shunned by others, he’s sent to a monastery, an ironic twist since his father was educated by monks and then left his vocation after meeting the narrator’s mother. There’s a strongly poetic quality to Khoury-Ghata’s writing, and the work is beautifully translated from the French by Marilyn Hacker.

‘The Siesta’ by Salwa al-Neimi is one of my favourite short stories in Banipal 24. A woman is attending a conference on the position of women in the Arab world. A man she meets at the conference suggests they have a siesta together. Eventually she agrees, on the last day. The sensuality of the encounter is contrasted with witty proclamations on the role of women. This is one of the best stories I read in this season’s roundup of small press magazines, and I’d love to read more by the same writer.

Samir Naqqash’s story ‘Tantal’ is another of my favourites, with a narrator fascinated by stories of the titular creature of Iraqi folklore. But there’s a poignant background to this piece. The author, a Baghdad Jew forced into Israeli exile, died last year. There’s an interesting article by Jessica Bloom which gives some information on Samir Naqqash and the plight of Mesopotamian Jews, a 2500 year old culture. Iraqi Jewish dialects are virtually dead now. Jews in Iraq lost citizenship and property and were later airlifted to Israel. But Israel is essentially a Western nation. As Jessica Bloom says, Naqqash rejected Zionist assertions that Israel and Hebrew could replace what was lost. Of Israel he said: “I reside here, but don’t feel within my spirit that I live here.’’ In the section of ‘Tantal’ set in the early 1950s, the narrator’s family have been moved to a refugee camp in Israel, where conditions are bad. One of those in charge claims: “Our problem is that you come from poor, backward countries still living in the dark ages.” But the author himself remembered a prosperous childhood in Baghdad. After an unsuccessful attempt to move to the UK, Samir Naqqash died last summer in Petah Tiqva.

‘My Name is Alaa’ by Haifa Bitar is the tale of a young boy abandoned by his mother. She has left his father for another man. The father takes his anger out on the boy who has his mother’s face. This is a well written, affecting and poignant piece from a recent collection published in Beirut.

‘One Afternoon’ by Huzamah Habayeb is another beautifully written tale. A man is reading his newspaper on the balcony of his home. On the street below life goes on. But when he reads his own obituary a terrible truth dawns. He tries to go and talk to his wife and children, but they don’t acknowledge his presence, and he has already forgotten their names.

‘Wild Mint’ by Jamila Omairah and ‘Circles of Sorrow’ by Ali al-Kasimi are beautifully written and imaginative works that reach back into history and myth. ‘The Ostrich Hunter’ by Ahmed Bouzfour begins when a man is locked into his apartment, but moves into recollections of the past. ‘You taught me to love life, Father!’ by Aroussia Naluti follows a man waiting for his pregnant wife to give birth while hospital doctors do nothing. The story moves fluidly back and forth between the childhood of the narrator and the present.

The poetry in the magazine is of the usual high standard. Saadi Youssef writes of ‘New Orleans’ in a work that addresses the city’s present and past. Joumana Haddad, whose work can be accessed in English at her website, gives us ‘The Return of Lilith’, where the ancient figure of female rebellion returns from exile. Akl Awit has three poems, and I really enjoyed all three, particularly ‘The Room’. Monzer Masri too has three poems - ‘The Hand of Disappearing’ being my favourite. Fadhil al-Azzawi has beautiful lines and images in ‘Unsuccessful Film’. There’s a more generously sized collection of Shaker Laibi’s poetry, exceptionally well written and beautifully works, sensual, and lyrical. Rachida Madani’s ‘The Second Tale’ from ‘Tales from a Severed Head’ has wonderful poetic repetition which casts a spell over the reader, and memorable lines like “the frail butterflies of your laughter”. There are selected stanzas from Majid Addam’s ‘On the Street, I repeat ‘Good Night’’. The first stanza is sensual and intimate, and as with Rachida Madani’s work, there’s the same skilled use of poetic repetition throughout the poem. Meanwhile, Lukman Derky’s ‘O, Syria’ is more outspoken, comparing the behaviour of the country to that of the narrator: ‘”e both celebrate our guests / and toss our children into the back rooms”, however, “I have taught my children screaming and beans / and you have taught them silence and hunger.”

On the non-fiction side, there’s an excerpt from Mohamed Makhzangi’s fascinating ‘Memories of a Meltdown’ which deals with the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster and the evacuation of the surrounding areas. Stefan Weidner, editor of ‘Art and Thought’ ( Fikrun wa Fann) is interviewed about the issues surrounding bringing Arabic and Muslim writers to a Western audience. ‘Art and Thought’ is a free publication, available in English, Arabic and Farsi editions. Book reviews and reports on international events like the International Festival of Arts and Literature in Marrakesh round up Banipal. This is another exceptional issue, with a strong female line up, and some first rate writing. Production values are high, and the translators are to be credited for doing such a fine job in bringing these writers to the English language world.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.