Yousra Imran's Blog, page 3

Diary of A Muslim Nobody by Reaz Rahman

I’ve finally finished this delightful book which I started last month - it has been my bedside companion and at the end of each day I’ve been reading a section before going to sleep. If you enjoy the poetry and spoken word of Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan you’ll enjoy Diary of A Muslim Nobody by British Asian writer and poet Reaz Rahman.

It comes across as a big book - but actually it’s in the form of an actual journal - for every page there’s a blank page where you can make your own notes and reflections. The book is a mix of spoken word, prose and poetry on the social issues that affect Muslims - and non-Muslims from ethnic minority backgrounds - today. He delves into everything from the effects of colonialism, to racism and misogyny, to even more recent issues such as the Black Lives Matters movement and the COVID-19 pandemic. The serious retrospections are interjected with written conversations between Rahman and his parents, who, by the way, are absolutely hilarious!

My favourite section of the book was one that reflected on mental health - I have to say it got me teary-eyed! And I enjoyed the spiritual retrospections that delved into the universe, the Creator and faith. These are deeper thoughts many of us have which pass us by but Rahman has penned them to paper. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and seeing a new Muslim author. It was the perfect book before bedtime, but I can also see it being easily read in one-go (longer if you decide to make notes).

Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon

I was gifted this proof of Fragile Monsters by Catherine Menon, by Viking Books UK, and I’m super excited for this historical novel about Malaysia and debut from another brilliant female author of colour! Fragile Monsters comes out in January 2021.

Durga, named after the Hindu goddess of war and strength, is of white British and Indian descent, and is a professor of mathematics who has gone home to Malaysia to visit Mary, her grandma or Ammuma, for Diwali. Durga’s mother Francesca supposedly died during childbirth leaving Mary to bring her up.

After Durga sets off some cheap fireworks she bought in the market, a firework misfires and sets Mary’s home alight. Durga manages to rescue her grandmother but the fire sets off Mary’s worsening health. As Durga battles her feeling of being torn between staying to look after her difficult grandma, and going back to Kuala Lumpur to teach, the ghosts of her and Mary’s past come back to haunt them both, revealing secrets.

The book moves between the 1980’s with Durga talking in first person and Mary’s past in third person. We journey through Mary’s childhood, teen years and adult years, against the backdrop of British colonialism in Malaysia in the ‘20s through to the Second World War. There’s the constant imagery of the flooding river of Jelai and the way it claims lives.

I thoroughly enjoyed the historical aspect of the novel and how it was seamlessly woven in and I loved learning about Indian culture in Malaysia. Menon did a fantastic job of both. As a child Mary has impeccable English, but as an old woman it’s broken, and I read the entire novel wondering why, but all does get revealed at the end!

I think it’s an important work of historical fiction as there’s few books out there that talk of the history of British colonialism in Malaysia, and it was a really accessible read. I’m excited for its release in spring!

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona El Tahawy

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is the feminist giant Mona El Tahawy’s manifesto. Each chapter is an essay focusing on what the patriarchy considers to be an attribute when practised or felt by men but a “sin” when practised or felt by women: power, violence, lust, attention, profanity, ambition and anger.

I am a huge fan of Mona El Tahawy’s work and I feel like this book showcases how she is growing and evolving as a feminist from the time she wrote her first book Headscarves and Hymens in 2015 when she took on the patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa, to the present day where she tackles the patriarchy worldwide, head-on!

Each essay tells the stories of girls, women, ethnic minorities and LGBT and queer people in a wide and diverse range of countries from Japan and China, to Nigeria, to Saudi Arabia, to the United States. Backed up by lots of quotes and facts, Mona showcases how the patriarchy and far right white heterosexual men cause injustices to girls, women and minority communities and are constantly trying to hold girls and women back. Mona tells the stories of the feminists who fought back.

What I love about the book is that Mona shines a spotlight on so many feminists I’ve never heard of before, and tells their stories, alongside sharing her own life experiences and anecdotes. It was wonderful as a fellow Muslim Egyptian woman and feminist myself to resonate with El Tahawy’s thoughts. The writing is passionate and will impassion those who read it. This book should be read by all, regardless of gender.

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How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures by Huma Qureshi

If you loved Zeba Talkhani’s memoir My Past is a Foreign Country, you are going to LOVE well-known British Asian journalist Huma Qureshi’s memoir How We Met, which comes out in January 2021! Thanks to the publishers Elliot and Thompson for the proof.

I devoured Huma’s memoir in one day.

How We Met is NOT your conventional Muslim Asian woman meets non-Muslim white boy. There is no young Muslim Asian woman here being rescued by a white man. There is no oppressive family. It’s the tale of Huma’s journey to finding her husband, how she convinced her family to marry him, and a heartwarming memoir of growing up in the Asian community in the UK, being a woman who wants more for her life but also having parents who were supportive and who made her happiness, education and career a priority.

Huma delves into the make-up of Asian society in the UK, and the pressures that she faced as a young woman to get married to a “suitable boy,” something that many women of colour including myself can resonate with. It’s such an important tale for other women to read, to understand you can come to a point where having yourself is enough - and not to feel like you are only worthy as a woman when you have a wedding ring on your finger.

Huma’s anecdotes about her children are heartwarming, her relationship with her brilliant father made me cry and I just loved her husband so much from reading this book.

5-stars

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

I was lucky to receive a proof of Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, who was also shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020 this month, from Viking Books.

This novella is a tale of love earned and lost. A young black British photographer meets his mate’s girlfriend, a dancer, in a South East London pub and instantly falls in love with her. As well as both being artists they share a lived experience - as children they had both received scholarships to private schools where they were both one of only a few black students, and this shared life experience helps them to bond.

Written in the second person, addressing the male main character ( I can’t remember actually reading either of their names in the book!) Open Water traces the journey of their love against the backdrop of escalating discrimination and violence by the police and authorities against black people.

It was wonderful reading about love from the male POV and what can I say about Caleb’s writing? It’s an utter piece of art, so perfectly crafted, you wonder whether deep thought has gone into the choice of each word or whether it just comes naturally to him like a musician composing a piece of music. Caleb allows you to witness the main male character’s vulnerability and my heart was being tugged at in every page. It’s a tale about love that is so raw.

As we currently live through the Black Lives Matter movement this book is very relevant for the current times. Through the use of written emotion for a split second as a reader you get a taste of what life is like for this young black man in London, treating every day as if it may be the day when he doesn’t return home. Caleb repeatedly refers to what it is like to be looked at as a black person but not actually “seen.”

Open Water comes out on February 4th 2021 and is published by Viking Books.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum is a heavy read but a much needed book. Some reviewers have not liked the fact this book is full of aggressive male Arab characters but the truth is they exist. Stereotypes exist for a reason and in this book Etaf Rum has explored the ways in which Palestinian men are abusive towards their wives. It’s important to note that this is not the case in every Palestinian household, but as someone who is Arab and who grew up her entire life with Palestinians I can say that unfortunately I have known a lot of men who are like the male characters in this book. By denying they exist one is silencing the women who have been through these experiences.

Synopsis: Israa is 18 when her parents marry her off in Palestine to Adam, who is over a decade older and lives in America. Growing up Israa loves reading books but her parents thought reading was a waste of time. Her father Yacub beats and hits her mother who has become cold as a result of her hard life. Her new husband and mother-in-law Fareeda also think reading is a waste of time. Israa moves to America with Adam and lives with her in-laws. Over time Adam becomes violent and abusive, especially after Israa fails to give him a son and is subjected to pressure by Fareeda to give her a grandson. Adam faces a lot of pressure from his family to work long hours to support them and keep the family business running. Sara, Adam’s sister, is bold and brave and smuggles books home from school and gives them to Israa to read in secret. Sara wants to go to college.

I loved the way in which the love of reading is a form of escapism in this book, and also a love which can bind people, in this case, Israa and her sister-in-law Sara. It’s also a love that is carried through generations, down to Israa’s daughters. We also witness the way in which the patriarchy views books - i.e. knowledge - in the hands of a female as a weapon and as a threat.

Fast forward twenty years and we meet 18-year-old Deyaa and her three sisters. They live with their grandparents Fareeda and Khaled because their parents Israa and Adam died in a car crash. Fareeda is trying hard to marry Deyaa off even though Deyaa wants to go to college. Deyaa finds herself in a battle for her future, and as she pushes hard to find out more about her parents secrets start to unfold.

The character of the mother-in-law Fareeda is central to the novel. She is a woman who is an enabler of the patriarchy and an example of a woman who went through her own abuse and suffering from her husband and is now allowing the same violence to happen to the females in her family. She encourages women to stay silent in the face of abuse. The justification given in this book for the men’s appalling behaviour is traumatic bondage - generations of violence whose root is the original act of violence in 1948 when the Israeli forces seized Palestinian land unlawfully and destroyed homes, murdered mercilessly and arrested and tortured men. This is often given as an explanation as to why some Palestinian men are aggressive and violent. I don’t believe anything gives a man a right to raise his hand to a woman. This can no longer be used as an excuse.

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The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah

There have been so many raving reviews about The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah and here is my raving review to join them!

Synopsis: Afaf is the headteacher of Nurrideen School for Girls in Chicago. While praying in an old Catholic confessions room - the school used to be a nunnery - she hears what sounds like firecrackers. But they’re not firecrackers. It’s the sound of a shooter. As Afaf comes face-to-face with the shooter we are taken back to the 70’s and chapter by chapter we re-live Afaf’s childhood, teenage years and adult years. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants to America, we learn about her feelings of not belonging, her mother’s yearning to return to Palestine and how her older sister Nada’s disappearance breaks up the family. We also learn about the way life’s events can lead you to finding solace in faith again.

Similar to Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, Sahar Mustafah’s writing style is so beautiful it’s poetic. The chapters about Afaf as an adult are particularly beautiful and had me crying - no spoilers! We did get some insight into the shooter’s life and how he arrived to this point, but the chapters about him and the face-off with Afaf are relatively short. Was this done on purpose perhaps to not give this far right white shooter any power? The story is about Afaf after all so I liked that the chapters about her past were much longer. In The Beauty of Your Face Sahar focuses on family relationships rather than it being a focus on historical events in Palestine.

One of the things I loved was in this book we get to know a different type of Arab father - the loving, soft, kind and supportive Arab father who dotes on his daughters. The father-daughter relationship in this story had me in tears but for good reasons! It was just so beautiful. I loved how Sahar weaved in Arabic words and Islamic phrases. She writes about Islamic beliefs and practices in a way that isn’t preachy but natural, meaning non-Muslims can easily read this book.

I adored the narrative of Afaf finding her faith on her own. One thing I did see in this novel and in all the Palestinian novels I’ve read is the character of the vacant mother - Afaf yearns for attention and closeness from her mother but life’s events have made her mother cold and vacant. I’ve seen this character now in many Palestinian novels so it’s an interesting parallel although I am sure it is not a generalisation at all. I will definitely be reading Sahar’s future books!

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Inhaled is an appropriate verb for how I read The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Did it meet the hype? Yes, and more! If you’ve been meaning to buy or borrow it, there’s no need to linger!

Desiree and Stella are identical twins who live in a town called Mallard near Louisiana in America which can’t be found on any map. The inhabitants of this town are all mixed race, light-skinned black people. Stifled by their small town lives they run away aged 16, but once in New Orleans, Stella and Desiree part ways. Desiree lives the life of a black woman and Stella decides to live a lie pretending to be a white woman.

This book is so relevant for the current times we are living in. Bennett delves into racism, transgenderism, domestic abuse, white privilege and white passing over four decades and weaves these topics into the story so seamlessly. The narrative flows like water and it was near to impossible to put the book down - I finished it in a day and a half. I loved the relationship between Jude, Desiree’s daughter, and her boyfriend Reese. It was interesting to see the racism within the light-skinned black community itself and how they discriminated against darker skinned black people. This is a feature common within many ethnic communities too. I thought the ending was just so perfect. I’m excited to read more from Bennett.

I feel like a re-read may be needed to make sure I’ve not missed anything as I got through it so quickly!

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Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

I was incredibly lucky to take part in a virtual meet-up in August with Leeds Lit Club where we met Susan Abulhawa, author of Mornings in Jenin. I have long read books, both fiction and non-fiction, by Palestinian authors, but Mornings in Jenin has to be the first work of historical fiction about Palestine that evokes emotion so deeply and enables the reader to fathom just a tiny bit of the loss, pain and plight of the Palestinian people. My mother read this book years ago and I don’t know why it’s taken me this long to read it!

In Arabic we call the vocal sighs of the heart “aahaat” and I think it’s the word that best describes my emotions while reading Mornings in Jenin. At times I was crying, at others my chest felt constricted and at some points I felt like vomiting. As heavy in material as this book is it is an absolute MUST READ for us all to understand the history of Palestine from the nakba in 1948 to the wars of 1967 and 1973, the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982 and the intifada and massacre in Jenin in the early 2000’s. Susan so seamlessly weaves in historical facts while telling the story of 4 generations of a fictional Palestinian family, the Abulhejas, and she sets history right. Susan is an incredible writer, the writing is poetic and I think I’ve never read descriptions of love that are just so exquisite.

This book is an example of why own voices books are so vital. No non-Palestinian could have told this story the way a Palestinian can. As an Arab/Muslim I’ve been brought up since a young age to be passionate about the Palestinian cause but no news report or documentary has allowed me to truly “witness” and feel the way Abulhawa’s book has. Growing up I was loaded with facts but learned little about the human emotions Palestinians felt while being subjected to war and tragedy. 

I am so excited to read her new book Against the Loveless World which has just come out!

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The Pact We Made by Layla Al Ammar

Dahlia and her best friends Zaina and Mona make a pact as children that they will be married by the age of 22 and have their weddings together - Dahlia is now approaching 30 and still unmarried while her best friends are already married. Set in contemporary Kuwait, The Pact We Made is the story of a grown woman’s life facing the pressures of Kuwaiti society to be married by a certain age, behave in a certain way, work in certain fields and care about her reputation. In secret Dahlia cares not for these things and her mother’s unrelenting pressure makes her feel choked, adding to the chronic anxiety she suffers from as a result of a very traumatic experience at the age of 15, an experience that makes her “damaged goods” in the eyes of Kuwaiti society. Will Dahlia be able to stand up for herself and choose the life she wants?

As someone who grew up in the Gulf from the age of 14 to 29, I resonated with so much in this novel, from the pressures young Gulf women face such as the pressure to get married, the way society is obsessed with reputation, and topics such as convenience marriages and the way that sexual assault and rape is dealt with in the Gulf. It was incredible to read a novel about Kuwait in the English language that was so realistic and frank - for a long time novels set in the Gulf only existed in Arabic and if a book speaks of taboo topics like rape, homosexuality and relationships before marriage, they are banned in the Gulf. It was refreshing to read Gulf Arabic terms and to re-live experiences such as the expat house parties! A spot-on depiction of life in contemporary Kuwait - even if you’ve had no experience of the Gulf you will still be touched by this story of a woman who yearns to live a life she chooses rather than a life where others always set her path for her.

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