A Pure Heart by Rajia Hassib

A PURE HEART by Rajia Hassib received well-deserved starred reviews from both Booklist and Kirkus. This is the contemporary story of two Egyptian sisters.  One, Fayrouz, chooses to be called Rose and is an archeologist who marries an American journalist, studies at Columbia University and eventually works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The other sister, Gameela, is more obviously religious (for example, she wears a hijab), harbors a number of secrets, and is killed in a suicide bombing. Hassib uses flashbacks to develop the characters and motivations of both sisters. She deftly weaves in questions of fate and identity: [Rose] “thinks that maybe there are multiple versions of her, too, just as there are multiple versions of him and multiple versions of Gameela, and that her different Roses will have to learn to co-exist, that Gameela’s sister and Mark’s wife cannot go on believing they are enemies …” and of faith: “so much of faith as she [Gameela] understood it lay in a constant struggle to improve oneself, in the true meaning of jihad as an ongoing striving to be better, to do better, to let go of egotistic, selfish notions….”   A PURE HEART is very informative about Egyptian culture and history; plus, this novel explores so much more, including family relationships, sibling jealousy, dissent, poverty, privilege, religion, the role of women, guilt, after-life and death. This would be an excellent title for our Global Voices students as well as adventurous book groups.  

Live from Cairo by Ian Bassingthwaighte

LIVE FROM CAIRO by Ian Bassingthwaighte received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Although this is a debut, Bassingthwaighte has won awards for short fiction and was a finalist for the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. He also knows of what he writes, having worked at an Egyptian legal aid office in 2009 as a Fulbright Fellow and subsequently composing this tale of Iraqi refugee Dalia’s efforts to be granted a visa to join her translator husband in the US, along with the efforts by Charlie (her attorney), Hana (a resettlement caseworker), and Aos (a translator).  LIVE FROM CAIRO dealt with difficult ethical questions and deserves praise as a literary novel. Although the frustration with the bureaucracy was so pervasive that the book felt slow to me and I worried about Hana’s ability to make strong decisions, I know there are English and History faculty who would appreciate the complexity and nuances which Bassingthwaighte raises.

If asked, I would be more likely to hand students Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist) instead. Hamid’s title is much shorter (240 pages versus 336) and involves young people, Nadia and Saeed, who are trying to define themselves and begin their lives despite the disruption of war. Even though Hamid employs a type of “magical realism” in his exploration of the refugee crisis, I do think students could follow Exit West and would be interested.  It, too, received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal and another from Booklist.

Fractured Lands

FRACTURED LANDS by war correspondent Scott Anderson employs six narratives following a Kurdish physician and an activist from Iraq, a dissident from Egypt, student from Syria, an ISIS fighter and Libyan Air Force cadet. In explaining “how the Arab world came apart,” Anderson traces the history of the region and its’ dictators from the early 1970’s, noting in particular the instability states with artificially drawn boundaries and America’s role in Iraqi politics, particularly the invasion, which he says led to the Arab Spring revolts. 

In the last third of the book, Scott also discusses the rise of ISIS and subsequent migration of people and terrorism to Europe and beyond. He argues, “it is fitting that the turmoil in the Arab world has its roots in the First World War, for like that war, it is a regional crisis that has come quickly and widely … to influence events at every corner of the globe.” What is unique is how he has chosen to tell this troubled history through the life stories of six individuals and their families.  Certainly heart-wrenching at times and a much needed perspective to humanize a complex and difficult situation. 

Erik Love, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, also attempts to bring greater understanding in ISLAMOPHOBIA AND RACISM IN AMERICA (from New York University Press). He writes about hate crimes in America and how “many South Asian Americans are Muslim, but many others are Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist …. [and] many Arab Americans are Christian, Jewish or agnostic, but race exposes them to Islamophobia all the same.”  Much of his work focuses on defining what he calls “the Middle Eastern racial category” and use of terms like “Muslim American” to replace “Arab American.”

As part of his research, Love has travelled and met/spoken with leaders of advocacy organizations in the United States, conducted content analysis on documents like brochures and websites, and also built a large database with information on “Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian American advocacy organizations.” He writes about whether Islamophobia should be described as racism, noting a long history and parallels with other forms of racism. Several sections describe the work and past strategies employed by these civil rights advocacy groups, as well as a look towards the future and possibility for change.