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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 10 - 16 February 2000 Issue No. 468
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Monthly supplement
Light on the underground
A quoi rêvent les loups (What Wolves Dream Of), Yasmina Khadra, Paris: Julliard 1999. pp274Into the abyss
Yasmina Khadra
All in the detail
Masters of the Trade: Crafts and Craftspeople in Cairo, Pascale Ghazaleh,1750-1850, Cairo Papers in Social Science Volume 22, Number 3, Fall 1999. pp157A serious spinster
Passionate Nomad, Jane Fletcher Geneisse, London: Chatto and Windus, 1999. pp402Written by camera
Ayam Al-Dimoqratiya: Al-Nisa' Al-Misriyat wa Homoum Al-Watan (Days of Democracy: Egyptian Women and National Elections), Ateyyat El-Abnoudy, Cairo: Kassem Press, 1999. pp197Bizarre, perhaps
The Bazaar, Markets and Merchants of the Islamic World, Text by Walter M. Weiss and photographs by Kurt-Michael Westermann, London: Thames & Hudson, 1999. pp256All about Egypt
Egypt: Nile, Desert, and People, Wolfgang and Rosel Jahn, Trans. by Manuela Kunkel and Ian Portman. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press 1999. pp191 + 300 colour illustrationsThrough the mask of Yasmine
Layali Okhra (Other Nights), Mohamed El-Bisatie, Beirut: Al-Aadab Publishing House, 2000. pp180Photohgraphs of Egypt and the Holy land, Francis Frith, Zeitouna Publishing, 1999 --see caption--
To the editor
At a glance
A shorthand guide to the month compiled by Mahmoud El-Wardani* Hikmet Al-Missriyeen (The Wisdom of Egyptians), introduced and edited by Mohamed El-Sayed Said, Cairo: The Cairo Centre for Human Rights, 1999. pp273
* Ashr Sanawat maa Farouq (Ten Years with Farouq), Karim Thabit, Cairo: Al-Shorouq, 2000. pp472 (Adel Hammouda and Me), Ahmed Fouad Negm, Cairo: Zeinab Publishing House, 2000. pp108
* Mirayat Al-Dhat Al-Okhra (Mirror of the Other Self), Sabri Hafiz, Cairo: General Organisation for Cultural Palaces, Aswat Adabiya Series, 1999. pp365
* Moqarabat Al-Abad (Nearing Eternity), Gamal El-Ghitani, Cairo: Nahdit Misr Publications, 2000. pp96
* Al-Kotob: Wighat Nazar (Books: Viewpoints), monthly magazine, issue no. 13, February 2000 Cairo: The Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publication
* Al-Fonoun Al-Sha'biya (The Folk Arts), a specialised periodical, issue no.58-9, Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organisation
* Al-Osour Al-Jadida (New Eras), monthly magazine, issue no. 5, February 2000, Cairo: Sinai Publishing House
* Nizwa, quarterly magazine, issue no.11, Oman: The Oman Institution for Journalism, Publication and Mass Communication
* Al-Hilal, monthly magazine, issue no. 2, February 2000, Cairo: Al-Hilal Publishing House
Books is a monthly supplement of Al-Ahram Weekly appearing every second Thursday of the month. We welcome contributions and letters on subjects raised in this supplement. Material may be edited for length and clarity; and should be addressed to Mona Anis, Books Editor, Al-Ahram Weekly, Galaa St., Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt; Faz: +202 578 6089; E-mail: m.anis@ahram.org.eg
For advertising call +202-5780233; Fax +202 394 1866To see other book supplements go to the ARCHIVES index.
Illustrations courtesy of International Commitee of the Red Cross
"Folk drawings and tales", Cairo, 1996
Into the abyss
By Yasmina KhadraI killed my first man on Wednesday 12 January at 7:30 am. He was a magistrate. He was leaving his house and going towards his car. His little girl of six-years-old was walking in front of him, her hair tied back with blue ribbons, a schoolbag on her back. She walked right past me without seeing me, and the magistrate was smiling at her, though he had a tragic look about him. One would have said he looked something like a hunted animal. He stared when he saw me crouching in the doorway. I don't know why he continued on his way as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he thought he had a chance of deflecting the threat by ignoring it. I took out my revolver and hurried to catch up with him. He stopped and turned to face me. In a fraction of a second all the blood had drained from his face. He went white. For a moment I thought I'd got the wrong man; "Khodja?" I asked him. "Yes," he said in a colourless tone of voice. His naiveté -- or assurance -- gave me pause. It was an incredible effort to lift my arm. My finger curled round the trigger.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" Sofiane called out. "Shoot the bastard!" The girl didn't seem to understand completely, either that or she was refusing to admit what was going on. "I don't believe it," Sofiane shouted. "You're not going to back out now. He's just a jerk." The earth felt as if it were going to give way beneath me. Nausea overwhelmed me, twisting up my guts, paralysing me. The magistrate thought he had a chance of saving his life in my hesitation; had he stayed still, I think I wouldn't have had the strength to go through with it. As it was, each shot shook me from head to foot -- I didn't know how to stop myself from firing, neither perceiving the shots nor the girl's cries. Like some sort of meteorite I had passed the speed of sound, gone beyond the point of no return, fallen into a parallel universe from which there was no return.
Sofiane gave me a glass of water.
-- How do you feel?
I was feeling nothing.
I didn't want anything -- neither to drink, nor to eat, nor to speak.
Stretched out in an armchair, I sat facing the window, eagerly breathing in the fresh winter air. Outside was the garden under a light rain, and a tree was playing at hide-and-seek in the wind. Further off the noise of traffic could be heard.I was having difficulty understanding what had happened. I had the vague feeling that I had just taken a definitive step after which nothing would ever be the same. Intermittent flashes zoned through the darkness in my head. By turns I could make out a face, a pair of lips, hair tied back with ribbons, a pistol in my hand, heaven and earth turning around me as if some crazy windmill had caught me up in its strokes. Then everything went dark; there was just me face to face with my conscience. I gripped the sides of the chair in an effort to repress any such reaction ... Any reaction at all. I felt nothing. My hands weren't even trembling.
I took myself back to the scene of the attack, on tiptoe, in a jolt. Resaw the body falling under fire, getting up, falling down, getting up, falling down ... as if caught up in some deadly film loop. I heard neither the gunshots nor the girl's cries. I think I must have gone deaf as I fired. Sofiane had had to grab me bodily around the waist and thrust me towards the car, otherwise I would have stayed, fixed to the earth like some scarecrow in front of my victim. I hadn't said a single word since we got back, but an inextinguishable rage was consuming me. I resented the revolver that had refused to stop firing, my hand that had let it do so, above all the magistrate who had just accepted his fate, just like that, just because some guy had decided to kill him in the street like an animal. I resented him for having involved me in his fall, involved me in the drama of his death. I resented men in general -- for being just so much falsehood, so many flies, just statues with feet of clay that a bullet a few times smaller than a dice could wipe out in an instant. I was furious at the disconcerting ease by which man just bowed out of the world through so small a gate, he who was made in the image of God almighty.
I had discovered through extreme brutality that nothing was more vulnerable, miserable or less consistent than a man. It was appalling, unbearable.
-- Once you've done three, everything'll be fine, Sofiane said.
From A quoi rêvent les loups, translated from French by David Tresilian.
