The Translator in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 20, 2022 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: setting-uk-scotland, novels, translated-fiction, setting-africa, project-fit

I don't generally go for novels that are all about the interior, so it was a bit of a surprise to me how well this pulled me along. It takes place almost entirely inside the head of Sammar, a widowed Sudanese woman working as an Arabic/English translator at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. She's been living a kind of purgatorial life for several years, ever since her husband died in a traffic accident. She took his body to Khartoum, where she also left their baby son Amir in the care of I don't generally go for novels that are all about the interior, so it was a bit of a surprise to me how well this pulled me along. It takes place almost entirely inside the head of Sammar, a widowed Sudanese woman working as an Arabic/English translator at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. She's been living a kind of purgatorial life for several years, ever since her husband died in a traffic accident. She took his body to Khartoum, where she also left their baby son Amir in the care of her aunt. Numbed by grief and lacking a sense of her place in the world, she starts to find solace in conversations with one of the department professors, a twice-divorced Scot who is an expert on the Middle East and Islamist movements.

For Sammar, hope is dangerous, and even as she longs to fulfil a traditional role as wife and caregiver, it would be unthinkable to do so with a non-Muslim. Her basic faith is the heartbeat of the novel, and the rendering of that faith is what makes the book work. She's just a straightforward, everyday believer who finds comfort in the rhythms of prayer and practice, even in the cold northern winters of Scotland. The first two-thirds of the book take place in Aberdeen, as she struggles to make sense of her life there and what her growing feelings toward the professor mean. For the final third of the book, she has returned to Khartoum on an extended visit to see her family and figure out what path her life should take.

For such an interior book, it's very understated -- which is not to say flat. The writing is beautiful and captures Sammar's interior life most compellingly. There's a strong sense of place too, as both Abderdeen and Khartoum come alive as characters in their own right, each with their attractions and pitfalls. For a book so steeped in faith, it's not at all didactic, and it's important to read it understanding that Sammar is just one of a constellation of types of Muslim women living in the West, and her story is just one of many that could be told. ...more

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