14 - 20 March 2002
Issue No.577
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 March 2002 Issue No.577 |
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Writing a woman's life
Gulpérie; La ballade des geôles; D'une mort à l'autre (Gulpérie; Jail Song; From One Death to Another), Gulpérie Efflatoun Abdalla, Paris: Editions l'Harmattan, 2002These three volumes of autobiography, published this week in Paris, together constitute a moving and engrossing read, both as the story of a remarkable life and as a fascinating account of Egypt's social and political history across some five decades. In her dense and poetic text, splendidly reproduced in these new volumes from Editions l'Harmattan, Gulpérie Efflatoun Abdalla has told the story of a tumultuous period in modern Egyptian history, from the 1930s to the 1980s, from the standpoint of an unusually intelligent, talented and politically engaged woman.
Woman in jail, Inji Efflatoun, 1960
Gulpérie, the first part of the trilogy, deals with the author's formative years. Born into an Egyptian aristocratic family in the second decade of the last century and from a Turkish background, Gulpérie Efflatoun was an unconventional young woman, journeying from the salons of Cairene high society to those of the French literary left, mixing with representative figures of the post-World War II period in Paris and befriending many well-known personalities, such as Aragon and his wife Elsa. While in Paris, Gulpérie also met the man she was to marry, Ismail Sabri Abdalla, a young Egyptian economist, trained at the Sorbonne.
Together, the couple returned to Egypt and married, but Sabri Abdalla's prestigious post as economic adviser to the presidency came to an abrupt end in 1954, when he was imprisoned on suspicion of being a founding member of an illegal communist organisation. Tortured while in detention, but later released due to lack of evidence, Sabri Abdalla returned to jail in 1958, this time spending six years in concentration camps.
La ballade des geôles, the second part of the autobiography, therefore deals with Gulpérie Efflatoun's journeys from one jail to another, searching for her husband and her sister, the late painter Inji Efflatoun, both of whom were imprisoned for their affiliation with the clandestine Egyptian Communist Party. The volume also includes a moving account of Gulpérie's campaigning, both in Egypt and abroad, for the release of prisoners of conscience.
The last volume of the trilogy, D'une mort à l'autre, covers the period from 1970 to 1981, the two deaths of the title being that of Nasser in September 1970 and of Sadat in October 1981. At the beginning of Sadat's presidency, Sabri Abdalla is appointed minister of planning, the book chronicling the transformation of Egypt's economy, from central planning under Nasser to the Open Door policy introduced under Sadat.
Sabri Abdalla, however, is increasingly unable to agree with Sadat's policies, the disagreements between the late president and his minister of planning becoming more pronounced as Sadat embarks upon his policy of rapprochement with the United States and with Israel. And he finds himself in prison once again, a victim of Sadat's infamous "September Campaign" against his political opponents carried out one month before his own assassination, the book ending with President Mubarak's ordering the release of political prisoners upon coming to power in October 1981.
The middle five decades of the 20th century were momentous ones, not only for Egypt, but also for the rest of the Arab World. Gulpérie Efflatoun Abdalla lived through those tumultuous decades in Egypt's national life with unusual intensity and commitment, and historians of the period, as well as anyone wishing to understand contemporary history, will find much in each volume to interest them and to admire.
A Venetian woodcut showing two Ottoman ships, flying the crescent, surrounded by Venetians -- Mediterranean pirate ships figure prominently in Shaaban's novel
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