Passage to Dusk:

CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation

by Rachid al-Daif, Nirvana Tanoukhi (Translator), Anton Shammas (Introduction)

Passage to Dusk deals with the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s in a postmodern, poetic style. The narrative focuses on the deranged, destabilized, confused, and hyper-perceptive state of mind created by living on the scene through a lengthy war. The story is filled with details that transcend the willed narcissism of the main character, while giving clues to the culture of the time. It is excellent fiction, written in a surrealistic mode, but faithful to the characters of the people of Lebanon, their behavior during the war, and their contradictions. Issues of gender and identity are acutely portrayed against Lebanon's shifting national landscape.

The English-language reader has not been much exposed to Lebanese literature in translation, and Rashid al-Daif is one of Lebanon's leading writers. He has been translated into eight languages, including French, German, Italian, Polish, and Spanish. Translator Nirvana Tanoukhi manages to preserve Daif's unusual, moving, and at times humorous style in her English rendition.

100 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Anaya Sheikh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was for a Middle Eastern class, but I surprisingly liked it. The narration is so confusing, yet captivating. It really dives into the psyche of trauma from war and displacement, and questioning the truth of reality. I was trying to find closure by the end, but received none which makes sense with the narrative of the novel.

[Pollyanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very difficult to get into and stay attached to, but very poetic and moving. Soothing and horrifying at the same time in addressing the horrors of the war, especially reading this in the context of world affairs and my country seeming to crumble into similar “bottomless evil.”

[Abdullah Al-Rashid · Rating 2 out of 5]

رواية مكتوبة بين سكرة الواعي وغفوة الحالم.. يختلط فيها الوعي والاوعي ، بين الهذيان والحكمة... تأتي هذه الرواية لتناقش اوضاع لبنان التي لا افقه فيها شيئا، ولا افهم كثيرا من رموز ودلالات كاتبها... كانت الرؤية ضبابية اثناء تجولي في الرواية، استمريت بها لعلها تتضح في النهاية...لكنها اصبحت مظلمة أكثر...

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 if I could. Surreal and unsettling, but powerful in its confusion. I randomly grabbed this at the library and I'm glad that I did.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rashid al-Daif was born in 1945 in Zhgarta, a region in northern Lebanon populated largely by Maronite Christians. Like many leftist, secular Christians, he spent the civil war in West Beirut, an area known as the "targeted zone" between political and religious loyalties. The experience left him disillusioned with Marxist analytical thought, which felt dry and hollow in the face of history's onslaught. I needed "confession, screaming, and holding pain up in the face of recklessness," he recalled, and subsequently "went back to literature." For only the language of literature, al-Daif found, is as volatile as reality itself. (From the introduction by translator Nirvana Tanoukhi.)

First published in 1986, the original Arabic title of Passage to Dusk is Fus'hah mustahdafah bayna al-nu'as walnawn, which transliterates into "a targeted, or intentional, zone or space, in between drowsiness and sleep." True to its al-Daif's creative philosophy, the story is unstable and constantly shifting. The narrator has returned home after a shell blew his arm off and landed him in the hospital. The building superintendent tells him that his cousin arrived several days ago with his pregnant, widowed sister-in-law and her young son, and that he has lodged them in the narrator's empty apartment. They're still there and he hopes he doesn't mind. But anything beyond that is a waking dream. The narrator spends most of the time in bed, where the feverish heat merges with his PTSD visions in a fugue of unending violence and sexual energy. His voice is muted but his words describe a world dominated by the forces of passion - for faith, party, people - that sweep everyone and everything along in all their tragic senselessness. Beirut is suspended, caught in a zone where the only thing that moves is the cycle of destruction.

At only 100 pages, Passage to Dusk is condensed to what feels like the dream of a single night. Bombs, bloodshed, falling buildings, and sectional warfare have been a universal story throughout the twentieth century, but al-Daif's surrealism is an unusual interpretation. Haunting and evocative, Passage to Dusk is best read in a single sitting to drive home its visceral impact.

Original Review

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stream-of-consciousness, acid-trip of a book. Perfect to describe Beirut during its war years. This book vitrified me.

[Amr Ezzat عمرو عزت · Rating 3 out of 5]

السرد المستسلم للأحلام والهلوسات والرغبات والتوقعات. لم يعد هناك مبرر لمعرفة ما يحدث بالفعل، أو هو غير ممكن، غالبا.