“Him, Me, Muhammad Ali” by Randa Jarrar is a collection of short stories, which takes place around the world, from Egypt to New York and in between, revealing charismatic characters, both young and old, who are always resilient. Jarrar is an award-winning author whose novel, “A Map of Home,” published in 2008, won multiple awards and has been translated into various languages.
In this book, Jarrar pieces together stories that are both diverse and thematic with starkly different characters and circumstances, all seemingly interconnected. Each story possesses the same spirit of “accidental transients” in the form of strong Arab women and men, making their way through life in circumstances that are not always ideal nor easy to navigate. “Accidental Transients,” the title of one of the short stories, according to Jarrar, seems to imply a people who live somewhere other than where they thought they would settle, living lives they never intended to live, as if they have mistakenly fallen upon that life. But life has a way of pushing people toward their fates, no matter how much they may misunderstand it.
Such is the case of Qamar in Jarrar’s story, “The Lunatic’s Eclipse.” Qamar lives in an apartment building in Alexandria with her parents, Sophia and Farid Hafez, both actors in the Theatrer d’Alexandrie. In the same city is Hilal, a brilliant student. Qamar is famous for once making the moon disappear and “Hilal had been trying to figure out a way to get to the moon since he was four years old.” As life twists and turns in unexpected ways, the two find themselves living unforeseen lives, one as a tightrope walker in the Cirque de la Lune and the other assigned to work in a nuclear weapons development facility. It is the enchanting city of Alexandria and persistent desire for the moon that, as fate would have it, forces these two to find one another.
Many of Jarrar’s stories revolve around strong women — women who live in different cities and under different circumstances and yet all seem to display that certain characteristic that at once defines their strength and resilience. Their strength may at times be silent and masked in what the women think of as duty or as life, but it is strength nonetheless.
Jarrar’s story “Building Girls” centers around Aisha living and working between Abu Qir and Alexandria in a beach town where vacationers holiday from June to September. Aisha’s best friend, Peri, who used to vacation there when she and Aisha were little girls, has not visited for the last 10 years until one day she arrives with a little girl of her own. The women, though they have lived thousands of miles apart, one in Egypt and the other in North America, seem to be living in similar circumstances. Both are divorced from their husbands and have little girls, and while they rekindle their friendship, they learn that life is more than just meaningless relationships; it is about acceptance and belonging that they long for and find within each other.
Jarrar cleverly showcases the disenfranchised in her stories and the overlap of treatment when it comes to women and minorities. There is a bit of similarity between their misfortunes. Between patriarchal society, religious and cultural differences, supportive and unsupportive families, these characters leave an impact on the reader.
Just as the Palestinian dad does in the story, “A Frame for the Sky.” Twice, he has been told he cannot return home, once after the 1967 war when he is in a hostel in Amman and cannot return to Palestine and the next time in 1991, when he is with his son in New York. Speaking on the phone to his boss in Kuwait, he is told that he cannot return to Kuwait since thousands of Palestinians have been expelled or banned from re-entering due to the PLO’s support for Saddam Hussein’s actions. The father is devastated, after having used the last of his money to come to New York and secure an architectural position. But somehow, he makes it, is offered a job, and although his life is not perfect, he has a life to live.
Every character is a different shade, as are most people, and most of the Arab women prominently portrayed in the book. There is no single stroke that can paint them as one, because they are different, not only in shape, color and size, but in thought, feeling and future desires. But the thread of the tales does not break. It remains in the commonality of their strengths.
Between the Turkish sailors, the falcon spies, the card games in Gaza and Transjordanian Ibex, Jarrar creates stories that are eye-opening on one hand and completely relatable on the other. Life’s struggles are not unique to any particular people; they are faced by all, and it is in the journey that we find ourselves and each other.
To write that Jarrar is building a bridge of two seemingly opposite cultures and traditions would not be as accurate as saying Jarrar is the bridge between the two — as are most human beings who live in places that are not always their own. Not only does Jarrar seem to understand the nuances of being a minority, based on gender or religion, she seems to attack it head-on in her stories, and it is a welcome addition to the literature that prominently features women and men from the Arab world.
Left with a hope and a better understanding of evolving modern literature, one cannot help but think of Jarrar’s character, Qamar. As Qamar yells to the building superintendent as she tightropes toward the obelisk on Cleopatra beach, “I want the moon and I don’t need your advice this time,” it reminds one that although life can be fragile, the people who live it are not.
— Manal Shakir is the author of “Magic Within,” published by Harper Collins India, and a freelance writer. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
— life.style@arabnews.com
