The Leash and the Ball by Roddaan Al Galidi

 

 

The Leash and The Ball by Rodaan Al Galidi

Dutch fiction

Original title – Holland

Translator – Jonathan Reeder

Source – Review copy

As the year is beginning to unfold, there is a theme of migration and being a refugee forming. Here is another book that fits in that box from the dutch Iraqi writer Rodaan AlGalidi he fled his homeland to evade national service. Initially, he failed to get asylum in Holland, so he didn’t have Dutch lessons, but he has taught himself Dutch since the early 200o and published several novels. He has won the EU prize for literature for his book the ausist and the carrier pigeon. This book follows a similar journey to his own life and the narrator in his novel’s life, and that is the tightrope of becoming a citizen that is similar in most western countries.

You cannot compare a Dutch village to an Iragione. Whereas in Irag the dogs lie in wait in order to bite you, in a Dutch village it’s the solitude that lurks. To me, the word village means “factory for fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, and soldiers” (since village children in Irag do not go to school, the boys enlist in the army at eighteen). In a Dutch village you see tractors and barns, fields of potatoes, carrots, and on-ions, but not a single Dutch person sweating out in the fields, chasing his neighbor’s cattle from his orchard, or struggling to coax more water out of the ground. It’s as though the village runs itself. I was surprised to discover that even the smallest village in the Netherlands has a supermarket, where to my even greater surprise you can buy all sorts of fruit and vegetables without seeing the trees they grow on, or those trees having the climate they need.

Culture shock sinks in with Samir compares his dutch village to his former home at Iraq

 

The book follows the final part of their journey to become dutch citizens, Samir and his chance to start his new life as a dutch citizen. He like the writer himself tried to escape conscription into the Iraqi Army. He made that journey into Europe via southern Spain and ended up in Holland; he has been there for nine years; he is a qualified engineer like the writer himself. Alongside all this, a failed love affair with a dutch girl called Leda crops up again and again throughout the book. He tries to fit in the village he lives in by wandering with a lead and ball given by Leda and pretending he has a dog to meet people as we see the places unfold the places to places the asylum centre. The villages and places. He is a grafter. He doesn’t want handouts he tries to get jobs here and there (this reminds me of working in a factory in Germany alongside some Kosovian refugees in the early 90s; this couple were a professor of Albanian Literature and her husband worked on the Albanian version of a match of the day, and they were in a factory packing. But he also worked in the local cafe in the evening as our narrator does). as Saamir tries to blend in over time he slowly does, but it shows how hard it can be.

Had Leda also told the Dutch dog that he had to be ready in ten minutes? Could Diesel tell time? Questions only I could ask, and only Diesel could answer. I rocked from one leg to the other, like a stork, until Leda appeared. She had wrapped the leash around her left hand. Her expression showed no surprise that I was standing there after all, she had invited me herself but no enthusiasm, either. It was more the look of someone who thinks, well, I did ask him to join me, but was that such a good idea?

Leda his dutch girl and dog lover.

I loved this book as what makes excellent lit for me has to connect with me on a personal level. Has to be a connection to my own lived experience and here I felt it. I worked with Refugees in the late 90s and felt a connection to Samir. His life and story remind me of those friends I made on a factory floor in Germany. Rodaan Al Galidi captures the comedy and sorrow of being a fish out of the water, trying to blend in but standing out no matter what you do. The freedom he craves is always in his grasp when he lived in the asylum centre. I have another book by this writer I hope to get to later in the year as he is a writer. I’ve a new writer I love. Have you read any of his books? A great book from world editions

Winston’s score – +A one man’s life as a refugee in Holland at the end of the Hussein years he had to escape.

We had to remove this post by Hanna Bervoets

We had to remove this post by Hanna Bervoets

Dutch fiction

Original title – Was wij Zagen

Translator – Emma Rault

Source – Personal copy

Sometimes you see a book and then forget about it and then see it again and go I should got that book that was the case with this I went through a lot of the books that were in Waterstones post Christmas sale this book is one I had nearly got at the time it came out the middle of last year. As the subject matter had appealed it appealed as there aren’t many novels yet about social media that have been translated. The job of content moderator has to be a hard one this is the seventh novel from the Dutch writer Hanna Bervoets she has a wonderful website with lots of info about the awards including one for the body of work she has written so far. she has only this book translated so lets hope she has some more books translated. She lives with her girlfriends in Amsterdam.

were given two manuals that first day, one with the terms and conditions of the platform and one with the guidelines for moderators. We didn’t know at the time that those guidelines changed constantly and that the tome we received was already outdated when it was put into our hands. We weren’t allowed to take the manuals home with us, so we learned by doing. On the first day of training, a series of text-only posts appeared on our screens, and then, from day three, photos, videos, and livestreams. Each time, the question was: Is it okay to leave this up on the platform? And if not, why not? That last part was the trickiest. The platform doesn’t allow people to post things like “All Muslims are terrorists,” because Muslims are a PC, a “protected category,” just like women, gay people, and, believe it or not, Mr. Stitic, heterosexuals. “All terrorists are Muslims,” on the other hand, is allowed, because terrorists are not pc besides, Muslim isn’t an offensive term

The first day and what makes the cut and what is unacceptable according to the company

Kayleigh has taken a job at a social media company called Hexa part of a larger company she joins a team of content moderators, that view any content flagged as inappropriate or unsuitable(in the time of Musk taking over Twitter these people’s jobs are so important or else we go down a dark path) she likes her co-workers she even falls for one of them but this book is about the group here and the drip drip effect of the content and the constant pressure of what is acceptable and not and does you over time become use top this content so you let through the content you’d not thought about letting through at the start. Alongside this is a new relationship with  Babara then she falls for Yena a mismatched relationship. The coworkers take legal action with the pressure and sheer mental health issues this job causes them and also we see how each person has their own axe to grind from. Jewish coworker that gets into arguments and another coworker who is flat earth believer all add to a book that feels far more than its 130 pages.

That night we ended up kissing for the first time. After work Robert passed around another rollie, and at the bus stop we all took a swig from Souhaim’s stylish horn hip flask, so when we walked into the sports bar around seven we were still in high spirits- in fact, we were whooping as if we’d all won in the Olympics. Inside, some people were dancing. That was a rare sight in the sports bar, but Michelle must have picked up on her clientele’s mood and had cranked up the volume on the playlist all the way.One girl from our cohort was making out with a huge guy. It took me a moment to recognize him it was John, who always wore blue gingham button-downs in the office, but who was now swaying his hips in a soaking wet T-shirt, the fabric drenched with sweat even though it wasn’t very warm inside or outside.

They go out and that shared experience that leads to them falling off each other and being friends.

This captures what it is like to be on the knife edge of what makes the cut to be ok and what is demanded unacceptable to be seen this also shows how doing that as a job can be heartbreaking and heartwrenching and also cause those doing it to feel numb to the content they are viewing. There is a part she describes a sex scene and you sense how she has seen this content so often she even knows what will happen next. This is a book that did the rounds on social media given not social media content but for me, it is an age-old job of the moderator who viewed the video nasties and checked books for content. the police that watches videos. All these people have mental health from doing this job. It also shows relationships and comradeship in these jobs and how easy it is to have relationships with co-workers from the shared experience =but then there is also the side of that yes the shared experience but there is also the person as a whole that is outside that and that is what is shown in the two relationships of Kayleigh in the book. A book that captures a hard job and the outfacing of that on one person and the group she works with! Have you read any books about social Media?

Winstons score -B A great attempt to capture the social media world and its employees.

Freetown by Otto De Kat

Freetown by Otto De Kat

Dutch fiction

Original title – Freetown

Translator – Laura Watkinson

Source – review copy

Well here is the first bi-weekly review post from me and I have chosen a Dutch Novel From the Dutch writer Otto De Kat which is the pen name of the Dutch Publisher Jan Geurt Gaarlandt a publisher of Non-fiction and someone I would love to chat with as he has published a ten-volume on world Literature now that is one book that could do with being translated into English!  I read one of his earlier books Man on the Move a few years ago and have also read a couple of others that I was sent. I decided it was time to feature him again on the blog.

Sierra Leone, yes, that was where Ishael came from. I asked him where he’d lived befpre, hoping he would say something, and to was away the thought of my rash offer.

“He held his right hand to protect himselfand keep the dog in her place. I noticed the pale palm of of his hand with its dark edges.It was a momnet before he said:”Sierra Leone”>I tried to remember exactly whereit was, that country I’d never met anyone from Sierra Leone.It was only a place on the mao for me, somewhere involving Diamonds and civil war. But that wasa long time ago, and it didn’t make the headlines anymore

The offer to live with her and her trying to think where he was from

This book follows a couple that had split up in their sixties. Maria is one of those women that has made it through the world herself. She is in her sixties but she has taken in a young boy Ishmael he is a refugee from Sierra Leone he delivered her papers and they struck up a friendship that leads to him living with Maria this goes well they get on and over time the older woman looks on this guy like her son. SO when she wakes one day not long after he has become a Dutch citizen. So she turns to her old lover Vincent a man who loved her but it just wasn’t ever right but as they start to discuss their own past but also what has happened to Ishmael, this will take Maria back to the heart of where he came from and confront the ghost of and the loss of a boy.

I visited his village, Vince, I havent been back from Sierra Leone that long. For three wees, I was in Ishmael’s homeland instead of where I said I was. I’d told Maarten I really wanted to make a trip to france on my own. That was fine by him, he was busy with his own life.

“Three weeks- it seemed – like an ocean of time.But it tricjkled away into the Landscape, into the river, into the villages, int the endless people. I’ve been back two months now, but sometimes I wonder if I was ever there at all.

“My first time in Africa, I don’t think you’ve been there, have you? I remember you saying you’re a European through and through, You thought rome was far enough, you didn’t need to go any further than that, did you ? And maybe you’re right. A white person in Africa, it’s not right. I was suddenly very aware of my colour.”

Her view of being a white women in Africa as she hunts for Ishmael.

The book isn’t what it seems the story has a refugee but this isn’t a refugee story it is a story of the two old lovers and what happens about human nature when Maria reconnects with Vincent how we see has never really got over the split between the two of them. The past that looms large as they talk over their memories about what they have been through but there is also the present looming large especially in Maria’s mind and discovering where Ishmael disappeared to what was his story. I feel this is what Otto De Kat does well in his books is talk about the inner working of what makes us all human he peels the onion skins back of the past of Maria and Vincent as we see what lead them to the point they are at now. This is often as the two characters recall monologues about their relationship But then when we see the part of the book where they discuss Africa it shows how People from European view Africa in a certain way. It is what I expect from Dutch literatur4e something that has real soul and a subtle view of the world a sort of Quiet loud that remains with me as a reader if that makes sense.This was made possible by a grant for the translation

Venice The Lion,the City and the Water by Cees Nooteboom

Venice The lion, the City and the Water by Cees Nooteboom

Dutch travel memoir

Original title – Venetië-de leeuw, de stad en het wate

Translator – Laura Watkinson

Source – review copy

I have featured three books before by the great Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, I thought it was more oh well I have a few to add at some point. He is one of my favorite writers especially his travel writing I loved his letters to Posiden the yearly ode to the Spanish Islands he has spent many summers visiting.  here we have another place that seems close to his heart Venice he has been traveling there for over fifty years and he always tries to stay somewhere new in the city and he seems to have read most if not all the novels short stories and nonfiction books around the city itself.

A first time, there is always a first time. It is 1964, a rickety old train from Communitst Yugoslavi, final destination; Venice. Beside me, a young woman, American. The long journey here left its mark on us. Everything is new. We take the city as it comes. We have noexpectations, except for those asscoiated with the city’s name, and so everything is good. It is all stored away in the secret tissue of the memory. The train, the cty, the name of the young woman. We all lose touch, lead different lives, find each other our lives, find each other again, much later in the other side of the world, tell each other our lives. More than Fifty years after, that first day, in 1964, will find its way into a story, a story called “Gondolas”.The city, everything that had vanished in the meantime, will form the backdrop for that story.

The opening remembering his first time in the city.

Nooteboom is a wander whether on foot or the vaparetto that cross the city he first arrived on from a train from Communist then Yugoslavia in 1964 he has tried to discover something new each time. The city is full of tales he talks of the old city under the Doges. The earliest writers like Boccacio describing the city. The labyrinth nature of the city from Borges’s short story of the city he explanation of the word in Dutch which has a different meaning than in English. Then many great writers that had later written about the city he tells us of James and Mann Pound and Kafka. Later he later stays in a hotel that Kafka wrote his sad letters to Felice. This is a man that loves to discover anew the city every time he drifts from Rushkin’s time in Venice. Later we are discussing Cassanova and he reminds me of the books of Miklos Szenkuthy who write a book about Cassanova which had caught my eye a while ago. He brings to life the city its ghosts and the very fabric of the place.

A friend had once, long ago, spent her wedding night here, and she would later tell methat Kafka had written his sad letter to Felice in this hotel, a letter that probably read as if it were at last. That same year he had sent her more than two hundred letters and cards, so the message in this letter must have come as a nasty surprise. He has, he writes, reached the conclusion that art and love do not go together, he fears that nothing would come of his work. He expresses it more clearly in his diary:”Coitus as puinshment for the happiness of being together. I shall isolate myself from everyone, living as ascetically as possible, more ascetically than a bachelor, that is the only way for me to endure marriage”

His visit to the Hotel that Kafka stayed in

This is a book for any lover of Lit and Venice as he brings the city to life through those writers that have written about it, I have never been to Venice but love anything to do with the city ever have since seen Michael Palin working as a bin man the recent BBC series following the everyday folk of the city. Cees is a man of book and this for me has given me a list of books to read. As travel to the city is near impossible for the moment with the coronavirus meaning travel is hard you can see the city anew and vibrant through Cees eyes his fifty years of getting lost and discovering new things all brought to life by one of my favorite translators Laura. Have you ever read Cees travel writing?  Have you a city you want to visit at some time?

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

Dutch Fiction

original title –  De avond is ongemak

Translator – Michele Hutchinson

Source – review copy

I was pleased when this made the Booker longlist as I had already said I would review it today as part of a Bokenweek tour which I have taken part through over the last few years. I have long been a fan of Dutch lit so when the chance to review a book from one of the rising stars of Dutch Lit Marieke Lucas Rijneveld first came to notice with a poetry collection Calfskinwhich won a poetry prize. She grew up in the North Brabant area of The Netherlands where it is a large dairy farming area and religious as well. Her middle name was initially a fantasy friend when she was growing up but in her late teens, she took the name as a way to show her as an intermediate person. The discomfort of evening is her debut novel like the main character she also lost a sibling growing up.

“But he’s not dead” Mum said to the vet. She got up from the edge of the bath and extricated her hand from a pale blue flannel. She’d been just about to clean Hanna’s bottom, otherwise there was achance she’d get worms. They made little holes in the cabbage leaves. I .  was old ebough to make sure I didn’t get worms and I wrapped my arms around my knees to look less naked now the vet had suddenly come into the bathroom

The vet tells the mother it is fatal but this is the start of the world they know falling apart.

When ten-year-old Jas loses her older brother and one of her five siblings through a skating accident. At this point her world starts to fall apart.she is on the cusp of being a teen discovering her body but also struggling with the loss of her brother. From believing her family ios hiding Jews in the cellar aftermath of Foot and mouth is still felt in the community times are hard for the family these are dark times. From toads under her bed to strange events with cows on the farm Jas is trying to bring her brother back and help her siblings. As her mother stops eating and the father buries his head in the farm. Matthies is dead and they can’t mention him as the family struggles this is a portrait of a meltdown viewed from the eyes of a ten year but a ten-year-old with a weird way of dealing with her grief her self.

“How’s it going in the basement ?”

I don’t look at my mother but fix my gaze on  the floweery meadow on her apron, It’s possible that mum will move into the basement one day ; that she’ll find the family, the Jewish people that live there, nicer than us. What wikl hapopen to the three kings then, I don’t know: Dad is still incapable of evening heating up milk for coffeee. and if he lets it even tht boil over, how could he ever keep his children at the right temprature?

The family is spliting before Jas eyes.

This is a slow unravelling of a family through grief it is heartbreaking dark and mesmerizing at times. In the hinterlands of Holland, a ten year old narrates as her family falls apart from the loss of the eldest son. The parents are there but aren’t there this takes the book into a similar territory of books like lord of the flies. As Jas her sister and brother start to do thing that are strange and odd rituals touching animals touching each other as they have no outlet for their grief their actions turn. As they grapple with the cusp of adulthood and also sexual awakening tinged with disbelief at loss add to the odd world. I was reminded of Gerbrand Bakker twin in the setting a dairy farm in the hinterlands of holland also dealing with death. But this is a darker book than that was it is brutal death is never far away as anyone how has grown up in the countryside nature and farming can both be brutal at times. What are your thoughts on these books ? I reviewed this as part of a boken week tour her are the other stops

 

 

The roar of morning by Tip Marugg

The Roar of Morning by Tip Marugg

Curaçao fiction

Original title – De morgen loeit weer aan

Translator – Paul Vincent

Source – Personal copy

I move to the Caribean tonight and the most well-known writer from Curaçao Tip Marugg. The small island just off the coast of Latin America. Has a number of writers. I picked this up as it was part of the Margellos world republic of letters book collection. It is a collection I have reviewed books from a number of times and one that to say they pick books from around the world always seem to find gems. This was written later in the writer’s life he had written a number of novels he is described on the dutch Wikipedia page as different from his flamboyant friend fellow island writer Boeli Van Leeuwen as he was more melancholic, more focused on the individual. he has a touch of Latin American magic realism in this book.

A dearth of drink obliges me to go back inside to replenish my supply of Dutch courage, but soon I’m back in my old place under the neon strip, on the same lukewarm paving slab, flanked by my fresh provisions.

At moments like this, when there is not a breath of wind, the night speaks with a chorus of primeval voices; the vegetation in my garden pats, as if the densly planted bushes were gasping for breath; the indju tree moans; the tiny, nameless creatures that forage for food only when the it is pitch dark make rustling noises, far off, an exhausted goat wth its head caught in a fence utters a death rattle

A wonderfully evocative passage of being sst in the dark of night.

A man sits Scottish whiskey in one and Dutch beer in the other he is a low point of his life. In fact, the fact he has those drinks in each hand is stopping him using the pistol that is nearby. His only companion at this time is his dog. He has decided this is the night and morning to end it all in what he calls the roar of the morning, He has seen birds dive to the death in the cliffs. He spends this time reflecting on his past and what caught him there. He reflects on his sexual awakening. The time he spent on the mainland where he discovered books ass the clock ticks. Later he recalls an old man with a huge sexual appetite that used to get all the younger women around due to his position. The time draws towards the morning his mind drifts as the booze starts to affect his mind and he is one of those drinkers that see the dark dogs when in the pit of drink he imagines the world around him in a fire.

I Spent my tenth and most of my elevnenth year – probably the period in your life when you see and hear most new things – on the mainland with my Venezuelan uncle. The man was neither Venezuelan nor even my real uncle, But I  called him that because he lived on the mainland and was married to a Venezuelan woman. He  was an odd charact3er, but I guess he meant well. In early of the oil industry he had worked for She;;, but after spending some time among the oil tanks that mushroomed on the north side of the harbourhe felt a vocation to become a minister. He went to Europe to study and returned a few years later, not as a protestant minister but as an evangelist belonging to some obscure sect obsessed with showing mankind the error of its was and threatening hellfire and damnation

This one event left a mark deep in his life

There is a podcast called Nocturne that deals with the wee hours here it’s the early morning between 1.30 and 3.00 madrugada, as the Spanish call it those dark hours when the mind can wander and one is maybe at our lowest ebb is caught wonderfully here our main character is a man that is caught between his Calvinist upbringing and island life in his way. of life make him A man in torment on the verge of suicide is like Lowrys character Geoffrey in under the volcano a man caught up in the bottle. The sexual awakening at times reminded me of Marquez’s works in the description of sex. This is a brooding work of one mans life caught in those two hours as he drinks and thinks back. As he says there is nothing better than a glass of Scottish and one of Dutch is maybe the way he is caught between two places. Another gem from Margellos world republic and another new country for the blog.

 

Shadow Child by P F Thomése

Shadow Child by P F Thomése

Dutch autofiction

Original title – Schaduwkind

Translator – Sam Garrett

I was out a few weeks ago when I saw this slim volume fro this prize-winning Dutch writer. I read the blurb it concerned the death of his young daughter Isa and struggling with the words to cope with this death has been so touched by the book by Carl’s book by Marie Naja Aidt which saw her coming to terms with her son’s death in his teens. I wondered the father version of the same loss would deal with it. The words on the back of the book some up the title may be “missing word. A woman who lives longer than her husband is called a widow, a man without his wife a widower. A child without parents is an orphan. But what do you call the father and mother of a child who has died ?”

We, who were no longer allowed to take our child in our arms, adapted immediately. We learned to read lips, eyebrows, fingersI eben read backs and shoulders. I read footsteps,doorsm=,silences. Later they brought in the equipment, more and more equipment, We learned to read that as well, we learned the numbers and their relationship to respiration,pulse rate, blood pressure, We learned to ignore certain beeps, and could distingush unerringly between various drips and tubes, They provide us with explanations, the only ones at our disposak. We wanted to understand everything.We sought a handheld in every fact, in order to keep from falling,.Into bottomless nothing.

I was reminded when i sat by my mothers bed as she opassed away with all the equipment around her and having the feeling of bottomless nothing.

There is a lot about the future here and the moment of loss from Pieter’ point of view a stone that had broken. As his girl drifted off from them. The future they saw is broken a book shut what wasn’t anymore.It doesn’t linger on the reason for her death what was wrong but the aftermath and the space left by Isa the trying to carry on. The betrayal in those writers he lovedNabakov and Flaubert who had both written about child deaths in the prose here, Pieter, in his vignettes feels they let him down even says in Goethe’s piece about the erlking which ends with the line But in his arms, the child lies dead. Pieter says this should have been the opening line no the closing line of the piece. The vignettes show how grief can rip your heart out as we have lived with our grief for the last year since my brother in law took his own life these words are touching and show the raw emotions of grief.

You don’t have ablank page anywhere, there’s nowhere I can get through to my own blanket ignorance. You put full stops everywhere and pull doors shut behind you (Yes, even you. Herr Gehemrat Goethe. your poem should not have ended with ” In sienen Armen das Kind war tot * ,.That’s how it should have started)

*In his arms the child was dead.

Even Goethe wasn’t a comfot of those writers he lived to read just seemed pale in the darkness.

The lines on the cover about the missing word for the loss of a child this is like carls book was a heartfelt work on personal grief and if you have grief in your own life is worth reading to show that you are not alone on the journey and the journey maybe be short or long everyone’s trip through grief. With it short chapters and drifting in time we see how Piter meditates on this moment of loss and the problems it brings to the parents of a shadow child the gulf of loss or a future never had the coming to terms and the loss of Isa her self those last days of her life that he relives from various angles and approaches. I was pleased to have found this book it came out 15 years ago here so it has been out of print for a while. But if you find a copy it will be worth reading.

Winstonsdad Man booker shortlist 2019

I was going to not read the list and did my usual guess of what would be on the list and got it so far wrong I wanted to see what was in these books and yes I managed in a month to get nearly through them all bar hundred pages of the Can Xue novel which by the time this post is up I may have read them as I am on the road to Alnwick tomorrow and a short holiday. So my six shortlisted books are-

Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Olga Tokarczuk

What happens when nature kicks back we see here when things start happening in the Polish hinterlands in a small community. A previous winner is different to flights and shows the depths of her writing.

The shape of Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

A book that sees Vasquez as a character in his own book that is about an assignation of a Columbian politician almost like there JFK a great historical novel.

The years by Annie Ernaux

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A powerful little book at post-war  France and its generation told through pictures, movies, books, events, and life it builds a vivid picture of the years that followed the war.

At Dusk by Hwang Sok-Yong

An architect is greet by his past in a story that sees two sides of lives in Modern Korea from two people that grew up in a working clas  area and went in different directions but meet at the moment there worlds both are about to change.

The Death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa

 

Maybe the shortest book on the list but for me it is the most powerful as it is about a subject that we all see on the news that of immigration and he uses four characters to encompass a wider world.

Celestial bodies by Jokha Alharthi

 

I am yet to review this but this family saga shows the growth of Oman through the lives of three sisters and the family of the sisters going back to the early 20th century and to now with one of the main stories being told by a relative on jumbo heading home to his family.

So here are my six books an  interesting list of books I have discovered three maybe four books that have passed me by. What are your thoughts on the books on the list ?

The death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa

The death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa

Dutch fiction

Original title De dood van Murat Idrissi

Translator – Sam Garrett

Source – personal copy

Now the last visit to a writer I have read before on this year’s Man Booker Longlist. I read Tommy Wieringa novel a few years ago but never reviewed it he has had a number of his books translated to English. He studied history and journalism at university. He had a number of jobs as a light seller and on the railways before he became a full-time writer. His breakthrough came when his third novel Joe speedboat won a big ditch book prize he has since then 18 more works. This is the short book on this year’s longlist at just a hundred pages but as you can tell by the cover and title it is a powerful little novella and maybe one of those books that should notice more than it was.

It’s her uncle’s fault that she was born in Holland. In 1975, her father arrived in France from Targuist – that was all fairly easy back then, hos brpther convinced him to travel on to holland. They worked in shifts at the Hoogoven mills, and shared a room in Beverwijk. They married and were laid off during the steel crisis in the early eighties . Life beat them down. Her uncle rose to his feet again , her father remained lying, he was the weaker of the rwo.But her uncle was dead and her father was still alive.

The iuncles death is part of the reason for the trip and shows how they started out in Holland by chance.

The book is the tale of Two Dutch women whose families are originally from North Africa who has decided to take a trip back to their parent homeland Morrocco. The two Thouraya she is as you would say is the pretty on the beautician and driving force of the two girls the other Ilham is the larger girl and worries she will have to settle down as her parents want her to as a usual Morrocan wife. The two arrive and immediately when having to hire a bigger car an Audi car. The two even as tourist feel that they are second class citizens due to there cultural heritage. They end up in a tight squeeze when a charming young man Saleh he takes it on himself to help and guide them around Morocco where to they meet in a seedy part of the town Murat and his mother and realize their savior has a price to his help them and that is to take Murat back to Europe he was once in France but was then set back. So these two unlikely traffickers have to bring this boy/man back to Europe in their car. But a cruel twist in the tale leaves them scarred for life about what happened to the young man in the time he was with them.

The two custom men don’t eave you past, they simply ignore you. Two cars in front of them, a mercedes is pulled out of line .

“Okay baby”, Thouraya says “Here we go ” sheputs on her film star face, and in a soundless dream they cruise past the customs officals , left and right. Before them them suddenly , there are twice as many lanes of asphalt . “Was that it ?” Ilham hears her own strange , high voice.

The two get through with Murat so easily at first little to lnow what will happen later on !

The shortest of the books on this Man Booker international list may actually have the most inside it as it tackles so many issues. Personal identity the two girls show the two sides of peoples cultural heritage Thouraya shows those that try hard and blend and move in and her friend likes to still keep her heritage but both initially view themselves as Dutch it isn’t to they get to the cultural homeland they then see how they may be western but will forever be Morrocan at heart. the four character incapsulate the vicious cycle of trafficking the two girls drawn into bring Murat to Europe to fulfill the immigrant dream of riches and a better world and life escaping the poverty of his home and then there is Saleh those who make a life of getting people in whatever way to Europe with little care for how it is done. For a book under a hundred pages it touches the soul of the reader and shows them the dark side of trafficking in a personal light in the story of four people that maybe are the voice of the thousands trying to get to Europe from North Africa.

Exclusive extract of Craving

I am luck to bring you below an exclusive extract of the book Craving by Esther Gerritsen , as part of a tour for the Dutch annual event Boekenweek that is all about books and sees a special book published ever year Ester Gerritsen was the chosen writer in 2006 with her book ” Broer ” .

The relationship between Coco and her mother Elisabeth is uneasy, to say the least. Running into each other by chance, Elisabeth casually tells Coco that she is terminally ill. When Coco moves in with her mother in order to take care of her, aspects of their troubled relationship come to the fore once again. Elisabeth tries her best to conform to the image of a caring mother, but struggles to deal with Coco’s erratic behaviour and unpredictable moods.

Publisher Twitter handle: @WorldEdBooks 

Publicist Twitter handle: @RKBookPublicist

craving was describe by Alice Sebold as  –

‘Cool, sparse, and delicious, Esther Gerritsen’s Craving hits all the right notes. This is an author who is unafraid of both complex characters and complex emotion (Thank God!).’—Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bone

 

My extract –

‘Nothing is as nice as fresh sheets,’ Coco says as she pulls the fitted sheet over the mattress. Elisabeth doesn’t say that she should have put on an underlay first.

She is sitting on the sofa next to the bed, looking at her daughter as though she’s five years old again and wants to help fold the wash but only makes it worse by helping.

‘Do you know that Dad said you locked me up in my bedroom when I wasn’t even eighteen months old?’

Elisabeth hears her daughter’s attempt to sound breezy. So she replies just as breezily, ‘Did he say that?’

‘Yes, he said that.’

‘That father of yours.’ She does her best to fit in with Coco, over and over. The previous evening she’d even tried to eat more, if only to show her that they weren’t that different after all, though she knows otherwise.

‘It’s not true is it?’ Her daughter looks at her.

She doesn’t reply fast enough. Now there’s no going back. ‘Your father wouldn’t make a thing like that up. Why would your father make up something like that?’

‘You locked me up?’

‘Do you remember anything of it?’

‘So it’s true?’

‘But can you remember it?’

‘Mum, you locked me up when I was a year and half?’

‘Times were different, you know,’ Elisabeth says, trying to sound like the hairdresser.

‘You don’t lock up a one-and-a-half-year-old child.’

‘You didn’t cry any louder when you were in your room. You really didn’t. It didn’t make any difference.’

‘A year and a half?’

‘Would you pass me that plastic bag?’ She points under the bed. Coco bends down and gives her the bag from the chemist’s.

‘A year and a half?’ she repeats.

Elisabeth gets the morphine plasters out of the bag and puts them next to the sofa.

‘Did Dad say a year and a half?’

‘You mean he’s lying?’

‘Lying? How do you figure that one out?’

‘You’re avoiding the subject.’

‘Am I?’ She unfolds the information leaflet.

‘Yes, you are. Can’t you do that later?’

‘Oh sorry, is it bothering you?’

‘Yes.’

Elisabeth puts everything back in the bag.

‘The pain’s not that bad really. Methinks.’

‘What?’

‘Methinks.’

Her daughter looks at the bag.

‘Well, put it back.’ She gives her daughter the bag. ‘Then we can have a nice chat. Just ask me, I don’t have any secrets. What do you want to know?’

‘Why would you lock up a child of a year and a half?’

Elisabeth wants to give her an honest answer, but her thoughts have already digressed. ‘A playpen is a kind of lock-up too, isn’t it?’

‘Mum, I asked you something.’

‘You need to put an underlay on.’

‘Huh?’

‘You need to put on an underlay underneath the fitted sheet.

Yes, I’m just being honest. You want me to be honest, don’t you?’

‘Why did you lock me up?’

Elisabeth searches for something true she is happy to share. She has a good memory. She says, ‘I put cushions down everywhere. In your room. All the cushions from the sofa and the big ones from the old easy chairs. I used belts to tie cushions to the corners of the cupboards so that you couldn’t bump yourself. I left you three bottles. Two with water and one with freshly squeezed orange juice. You liked that. I broke up biscuits into small pieces and put them in plastic bags. At the time you didn’t eat well unless you could get the food out of small plastic bags yourself. You liked that.’

Her daughter doesn’t say anything.

‘And there were toys,’ Elisabeth says, ‘cardboard cubes, from big to small, that fit inside each other. A wooden lighthouse with coloured rings. A book with animals that made sounds. A big cow that mooed when you pressed her belly.’

‘How long did you leave me there?’

Elisabeth looks at the paler strands in her girl’s hair and then her eyes descend to the fleshy neck.

‘I liked to kiss your neck,’ she says. ‘My face fit perfectly into the space between your throat and your shoulders. You smelt so lovely as a child.’ They don’t know that you love them, you have to tell them. Again and again. ‘I love you. That’s what I’d say when I tucked you in at night. Bye-bye little girl. I love you.’ Elisabeth’s gaze wanders off. She looks out of the window and thinks about the matt-grey Mercedes. Then her daughter tears the sheet from the bed.

‘Are you angry now?’

‘Why would I be angry? You have to put an underlay on, don’t you. Explain it to me, Mum, why would I be angry?’

‘Because I locked you up. You’re angry because I locked you up, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, don’t you think?’

‘You weren’t at the time. Not at the time, you know. You were angry when I didn’t lock you up too. You were always angry. It didn’t make any difference.’

‘And you blamed a child of one-and-a-half for that?’

‘No, darling, you don’t have to feel guilty about it—you couldn’t help it.’

‘I don’t feel guilty!’ Coco says. ‘What do you expect?!’

Elisabeth has that strange feeling in her chest again. Perhaps it’s indigestion. Her daughter walks away, out of the room.

‘What is it now?’

‘I’m fetching an underlay!’

The book is published by World editions and is available here