´It was a search for a truth that was missing and for a life of which she had dreamed but which she had never lived and must therefore seek elsewhere´.
Waiting for the Past, a novel by Iraqi author Hadiya Hussein beautifully translated by Barbara Romaine. starts like an old tale. The time is far away still, as we will figure out as the story unfolds, way too present. The search for an unfinished past invades the present, either of the persons or of the society. The future succumbs to the same wounds, it cannot exist independently. Even the dreams are of the past, are searches to explain why the past haven´t happened.
Nargis, the main character of Waiting for the Past is escaping Baghdad at the peak of the Saddam oppression against his own people from whom pretended veneration - the name of the dictator is not mentioned in the story - far away to the Iraqi Kurdistan trying to find the traces of her young love, Yusef, probably hold prisoner for his political remarks. His first part of the journey she is accompanied by a mostly silent old woman - ´The older woman was still an unknown quantity, a box with 15 secrets sealed inside´ - who is headed there hoping to find news about her other son, also probably imprisoned somewhere.
It is a journey through a life happening under the yoke of a police state, in the shadows of which a ´trade in catastrophe´ flourishes. Nargis is paying people to find out more about the wearabouts of Yusef, being took over isolated prisons of horrors and psychiatric wards. A human geography of cruelty - ´My God: How could a person - capable of laughters, of aspirations, of dreams - to be transformed, reduced to such ignomimious frailty?´.
Although her human landscape changes often, and random human connections are established, there is a constant companion that will follow Nargis: fear, present even when it needs to be pushed far away to leave life unfolding - ´shook the dust of fear from your heart´. Fear, another way to stop present from turning into future.
The storytelling alternates from the Ist - Nargis - to third person, when the story is swithing not only th person, but also the perspective, turning into a panoramic view of the facts and souls of the characters.
The political mosaique - the terror state, the mass graves, the political persecution, the invasion of Kuwait, the chemical weapons, the fall of the dictator, the American invasion, the looting of the national treasures, the trade with public secrets, the terrorist attacks... - is a permanent marker of the present. It is a past re-enacted, predicting an equally unpredictable future at the mercy of history.
The translator convenes the many fine richnesses of the Iraqi Arabic - here is an example of many: ´The wellsprings of the soul were full to overflowing´. The access of non-Arabic speakers to talented authors from the Middle East is extremely limited and translators are our brains and eyes and tongues.
Waiting for the Past touches upon a topic I am personally very much interested about mainly how everyday lives are tormented by intrusive dictatorships. It does it with delicate patience and fearless strength of the word. That´s what dictatorships of all kinds are afraid of.
Rating: 5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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