Mustafa Khalifa is a Syrian novelist living in exile. Besides writing fiction, he is an eloquent and insightful political commentator on the situation in his native country. Paul Starkey won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of Youssef Rakha's novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal.
Paul Starkey has translated works by Adania Shibli, Mansoura Ez Eldin, Edwar al-Kharrat, and others. He won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for his translation of Youssef Rakha's novel The Book of the Sultan's Seal.
From 1982 to 1994, Syrian topographer Khalifa was incarcerated in
his country's infamous Tadmur Military Prison, and his decision to
present his experiences as fiction results in a document both
haunting and bold. Perhaps only fiction could do justice to the
suffering he endured, but as the narrator also notes, explaining
that he resorted to an Islamist technique called mental writing to
store up what he experienced, I cannot write and say everything."
The selected scenes of beatings, torture, hunger, and executions
are scalding enough. Having fatefully decided to return home from
France, Khalifa's young narrator is immediately imprisoned and
accused of being a Muslim terrorist. In fact, he is
Christian-raised and proclaims himself an atheist, which serves to
isolate him from his scornful fellow inmates and makes his
imprisonment even worse. The story arcs persuasively from the
narrator's first shocks through his steady endurance in the shell
that was his prison to his survival upon release in a second shell
that's "becoming thicker and blacker." VERDICT
Highly"��recommended."
Khalifa's debut novel, about a Syrian political prisoner, entrances
with grippingly journalistic detail and incisive psychological
descriptions. Told in the first person, the book recounts atheist
filmmaker Musa's wrongful imprisonment as a Muslim extremist while
returning to Syria from Paris. In the form of diary entries that he
composes after his release, Musa tells of his experience leaving
Paris and the monotony of his 14-year incarceration, including
ostracization by other inmates and how he focused his attention on
a growing crack on his cell wall that became a keyhole to the outer
world. Khalifa vividly and graphically details the extreme torture
Musa and others undergo. Khalifa (who was sent to a Syrian jail for
more than a decade in 1982) captures what a long-term imprisonment
feels like, both the overwhelming claustrophobia and the stray ray
of light. Impressively fictionalizing his own harrowing
experiences, Khalifa shines a much-needed light on a war outside
the bounds of international law.
Khalifa's superb debut novel is structured as the prison diary of
Musa, a Syrian who has been studying film in France for six years.
He decides, against the wishes of his friends, to return home after
his studies. Upon arrival, he is mysteriously thrown into a
horrific desert prison (based on the real Tadmor prison) for 14
years, the setting for most of what follows. Musa announces that
his family is Christian and that he an atheist, so his fellow
prisoners, almost exclusively devout Muslims, ostracize him.
Marginalized, Musa adapts the detached perspective of a
sociologist, noting the hierarchies and patterns of prison life. In
spare, lucid prose, Khalifa, a Syrian novelist- and
political-commentator-in-exile, vividly describes the almost
otherworldly existence of the prisoners. Told in jump cuts that
mirror Musa's film background, his diary documents not only reflect
the relentless monotony and terror of imprisonment, but also the
prisoners' ingenuity: how they survive outbreaks of diseases, how
they stay cool in the desert heat, and their sacrifices for each
other. With echoes of Solzhenitsyn and Kafka's The Trial, this
demanding novel is an important account of the horrors perpetuated
by the Syrian regime.
Mustafa Khalifa's debut effort, The Shell, is difficult to stomach.
It is also undoubtedly necessary. A fictional account that emerges
from one of the most relevant and contemporary scenarios, the text
anchors the reader with its examination of depravity yet engages
and compels its audience to read on as the work illuminates
treasured, albeit painful, moments of perseverance and triumph.
Musa, a film student studying in France, is immediately apprehended
after landing in his home of Syria. He is subsequently withheld,
tortured, and then transferred to the harshest prison under Bashar
al- Assad's regime. Repeatedly stripped of his humanity and pressed
against death's precipice, Musa survives with dark humor and the
solace brought with a shared struggle. The narrator quickly
develops a mode of memorization derived from the practice of his
fellow inmates, cognitively noting his struggle and biding time
until he can record his journal physically. Unfortunately, Musa is
forced to endure for over a decade, a duration Khalifa echoes with
his harrowing prose. Khalifa's illustration of torment is striking
and compelling. In some instances, the writer's imagery is akin to
Dante Alighieri's Inferno as each pursuant episode sets a new
precedent of human horror. To combat this, Khalifa maintains a
realism and optimism through the lives of the inmates, often
providing a very real face to an otherwise nameless and imminent
cadaver. As the novel progresses, Musa's predicament slowly morphs
from scenes of helplessness, such as when he is forced to swallow
the mucus of a prison guard, to challenges the narrator is prepared
to overcome. That is not to suggest the content of the novel's
latter half grows desensitized, but it is evident of Musa's
resolve. Though Khalifa's attention to detail is exceptional, the
unanticipated comedy of his discourse is often its most compelling
suit. From the brief exchange Musa shares with a fellow prisoner
after the latter party mistakes his toe for the lips of his wife,
to the tale of a particularly aggressive guard's acquisition of a
new nickname at his own expense, each instance provides a needed
reprieve, proving the most troubling of scenarios cannot hinder the
spectrum of emotion. Khalifa's masterful control of pace keeps
these asides from trivializing the meat of his work, instead
building toward an empathetic whole. The Shell's faults are few,
though some of the text's key characters can feel minimalized
before there is an opportunity to become too attached. However,
this periodic feeling does seem in line with the grizzly and
fatalistic nature of The Shell's primary setting. Despite this, the
novel perseveres, conveying strength in humanity throughout its
darkest depths.
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