2 & 2 on the Middle East
Two Novelists, Two views on the Middle East…
israeli author Yehoshua lives in Haifa…
Elias Khoury, a Lebanese writer and editor, is from Beirut…
Both novelists portray the shared voice of their land and people…
Yehoshua’s latest novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, deals with what he calls Israel’s repression of its civilian deaths. Unlike the death of a soldier, he says, his countrymen don’t know how to mourn the deaths of those killed while simply drinking coffee or riding a bus.
Yehoshua focuses on this problem by telling the story of a woman who lies unclaimed in a morgue and the personnel manager who takes responsibility for and ultimately falls in love with her. But Yehoshua says his message doesn’t only apply to Israeli deaths.
“This is in a certain way the universal sentiment of this anonymous death in our streets — and how we can relate ourselves to this and take our identification and responsibility,” Yehoshua says.
First published in 1998, Elias Khoury’s novel Gate of the Sun was more recently translated into English. Protagonist Dr. Khalil struggles to keep his friend, a Palestinian militant, alive by telling him stories about his own life. The story connects the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to tangible names and events through these characters.”The role of the writer is not to defend his country,” Khoury says. “The role of the writer is to defend what is right.”
Yet he also says “sometimes the writer must live the stories.”
Excerpt: ‘Gate of the Sun‘
by Elias Khoury’
“We’re here,” said Fawzi. Her brother got out of the car and held out his hand to help her out. Umm Hassan moved her stout body forward but couldn’t raise her head.
She seemed unable to do so, as though her breasts were pulling her down toward the ground. She was bent over and rooted to the spot.
“Come on, Sister.” Fawzi helped her out of the car. She remained doubled over, then put her hand to her waist and stood upright. He pointed to the house, but she couldn’t see a thing. Her tears flowed silently.
She wiped them away with her sleeve and listened to her brother’s explanations while his son played around with the camera. [More]
Excerpt: ‘A Woman in Jerusalem‘
by Abraham B. Yehoshua
Even though the manager of the human resources division had not sought such a mission, now, in the softly radiant morning, he grasped its unexpected significance.
The minute the extraordinary request of the old woman who stood in her monk’s robe by the dying fire was translated and explained to him, he felt a sudden lifting of his spirits, and Jerusalem, the shabby, suffering city he had left just a week ago, was once more bathed in a glow of importance, as it had been in his childhood.
And yet the origins of his unusual mission lay in a simple clerical error brought to the company’s attention by the editor of a local Jerusalem weekly, an error that could have been dealt with by any reasonable excuse and brief apology. [More]
