Libyan Writer’s Debut Novel: Damn This Religion!
December 28th, 2007Libyan bloggers have recently been talking about the controversy over Libyan attorney Wafa Bu’esa’s first novel Hunger Has Other Faces. (Al Jazeera’s report) The novel, written in the first-person for “dramatic effect” as the writer says, tells the story of a girl who is forced by “living circumstances” to leave a stereotypically cloistered Libya and go live with her uncle’s family in Egypt. Here, the protagonist begins to broadcast her rejection of and hate for Islam in no uncertain terms, seeing an alternative in the Coptic Church because the “doors are always open.”
Most concisely expressed in the ”damn this religion” on p. 144, the protagonist’s long litany of anti-Islam sentiments runs through the novel, as she proclaims, for example, that “the Quran is incomprehensible,” that “I do nothing all day but pray…prayer has bent my back.” These recurring, accumulative comments, as well as what its critics have described as missionary-propelled rhetoric, have sparked protests and debate over the novel and its writer.
Bu’esa, who grew up in Egypt, defended herself and attacked her critics in an interview with Khaled El Mheer in Libya Alyoum. She contends that her novel doesn’t preach or lecture, but “describes something which happens on a daily basis”. This “something” appears to be a reference to depressed, repressed ex-Muslim girls flocking to (permanently open) Coptic Church doors.
Obviously we’ve moved on somewhat from the antiquated assumption of some sort of correlation between the writer and protagonist. The heroine is not the writer’s double/ideal self/imaginary friend. Bu’esa doesn’t need to actively dissociate herself from her Islam-hating heroine for there to be a distinction between writer and character. She does exasperatedly ask her interviewer if it is not yet time for women’s writing to be taken as literature not disguised autobiography. She also echoes countless other Muslim women writers who have said that the rights given to women by Islam are now too often summarily ignored. There’s nothing new in that observation, or in the idea that women’s rights in the region could do with a little improvement. But, as her statement indicates that the problems reside in our societies and traditions rather than in Islam, it potentially holds true for all Arab women, inside or outside a Coptic Church.
So it seems a little strange that Bu’esa should then describe the subject of her controversial novel, with dichotomous glee, as revolving around two “similar-different” places, Libya and Egypt, two “heavenly religions”, Christianity and Islam, and, “two opposing values”, these values being, respectively, open-mindedness and close-mindedness.
Dealing with death-dealing binaries, tables are always useful. The above seems grouped on either side of an invisible line into Libya/Islam/Close-Mindedness, and Egypt/Christianity/Open-Mindedness, with the novel charting the heroine’s desperate and courageous scramble into the light, castigating the evil forces that would drag her back into the dark wood. A regular peregrinatio.
The real difficulty, however, is that Bu’esa herself seems to find it impossible to draw the line between her character, her book and herself, the author. Also perhaps, between herself the lawyer and herself the author.
Because, when a lawyer who has just released her debut novel decides to take legal action against those who denounce her heroine, it does seem to indicate a slight jumbling of job descriptions. The words Publicity and Stunt also cross the conspiracy-addled mind.
Bu’esa decided to take legal action against Mohamad Alwaleed, lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Garyounis, for what she claimed was defamation. Alwaleed argued that to say her heroine mocks the values of Islam is a factual description of the fictional story, not an attack against or takfir of the author.
And while that dispute remains unresolved, Bu’esa’s novel is fast selling out. CNNLibya makes the point that, as in countless other cases, injecting a little, or a lot, of anti-Islamic rhetoric into a work of art has proved to be one of the quickest, most effective routes to fame. The protests have obviously only raised Bu’esa’s profile.
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Right, talking against religions seems to garantee the route to fame, regardless of literary aspects of a piece of literary work.
What is considerable when a youth holds a pen and starts writing is her/his conception of the important things they are demanded to be wary of. I do not wish to comment on where these books should be published or shouldn’t, should religious sentiments be played with or shouldn’t, we already have the book in the stores.
People who get offended with how it reflects the frustration of a representative of the younger generation of the methods demanded for practicing religion, if they wanty to react in a productive way should pay attention to this recurring story. I think religions are not to be blamed by the society that imposes religious laws. Society is more responsible for the fact that people, especially the younger generation pushes back the religion, which could serve as a good factor in his/her life.
What I found interesting about this case is that it is like an inversion of the usual freedom of speech issue. It’s not the author but the critics who are in court for expressing their opinion.
Tasnim,
In case no one was after me and I was as free as a …( as a what ?)
I did not wish to disrespect any one’s religion, I respect people and I respect their beliefs, then i want to be respected and my beliefs as well.
I do agree that freedom of speech brings more light to a good quality criticism.
What y’all are missing is that the basis of the “literary criticism” is nothing to do with writing style or skill: it is a RELIGIOUS objection. This is common as grass in the Islamic world, but increasingly rare in the Western scene; the last time I recall it happening was with the Da Vinci Code, and the criticism was that it took egregious liberties with historical events within the Catholic Church. Along with the more pertinent comments that it was drug-addled conspiracy Woo-Woo. But the author was not excoriated for dissing the/a religion.
Only in Islamocracy is this a crime. Fatwas will fly! Apostates will be expunged! Self-righteous morons will applaud!
What you’re missing is that the words “literary criticism” are missing in my post. I believe it is possible to be a critic of something without literary criticism being involved. I also believe it is possible to criticise a novel without being a literary critic. Bizarre, huh?
Amazing deductive skills. Considering the objection was made by an Islamic scholar, yes, one would assume “it is a RELIGIOUS objection.” Which has led to a court case, against the Islamic scholar. For writing an article that objects to a novel.
Bu’esa is indisputably free to write what she wants, and her novel, while not the first of its kind, has an audience large enough to be an indication of more open-minded attitudes. The fact that she’s bringing those who don’t like her novel to court though - seems slightly ironic.
There are no charges against Bu’esa, who wrote the novel. The charges are against Alwaleed, who doesn’t think much of the novel. I know this doesn’t fit your Islamocracy paradigm, but do try to bend your mind around it.
Author and novel are doing just fine. In fact Bu’esa has achieved cult status among certain members in the student community who habitually revere anything and anyone even slightly implicated in ‘transgression’ – i.e. those well-fed rebels, sons and daughters of the elite.
There’s no censorship involved here. No fatwas, no death threats and no apostates. The power, in this equation, is with the attorney turned author.
If it was a crime, Bu’esa would be the one in court, no?
What she’s done is that she’s written a novel of questionable literary merit with a plucky heroine who hates Islam, capitalizing on the trash-Islam-get-famous trend, and then, fanning the flames, played ground-breaking brave young Moderate Muslim woman writer, victim of Takfiri Wahhabi Islamofascist Extremists. Of course -
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