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inspiredbygrass 's review for:
Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence
by Leila Abouzeid
Read this as part of the #Invisiblecities2020 project . Thus month we are choosing books written by authors from Morocco , Argentina and Japan . Choices for me are limited by works translated into English .
I chose this as the first book written by a Moroccan author in Arabic , serialised in 1983 and translated into English in 1989 . It is a book that starts a very necessary conversation about colonialism, feminism , faith and power from the POV of a non educated woman .
The premise of this book sounded fascinating - an illiterate working class woman actively involved in the fight for independence who is then divorced by her husband when she fails to become more " sophisticated " or European when he obtains a position of authority in the post independent state . She is dismissed by him without redress and finds herself angry and bitter , jobless and discarded. She gains succour only from the gentle support of religious sage, who allows her to mine the depths of her faith without judgement .
There is a lot of anger in this book , which I liked , and the single-minded determination of the nationalists is well described along with some of the moral dilemmas they faced.
I did not enjoy the writing style , which seemed to fall into cliche on occasion, but given the book was bringing controversial feminist ideas to a mainly conservative Moroccan audience the simple style would have wider appeal than a more literary text seeking audience in the West .
Overall a three and a half star and certainly worth reading .
PS . There were a few short stories in my translation but I dnf'd some of these .
I chose this as the first book written by a Moroccan author in Arabic , serialised in 1983 and translated into English in 1989 . It is a book that starts a very necessary conversation about colonialism, feminism , faith and power from the POV of a non educated woman .
The premise of this book sounded fascinating - an illiterate working class woman actively involved in the fight for independence who is then divorced by her husband when she fails to become more " sophisticated " or European when he obtains a position of authority in the post independent state . She is dismissed by him without redress and finds herself angry and bitter , jobless and discarded. She gains succour only from the gentle support of religious sage, who allows her to mine the depths of her faith without judgement .
There is a lot of anger in this book , which I liked , and the single-minded determination of the nationalists is well described along with some of the moral dilemmas they faced.
I did not enjoy the writing style , which seemed to fall into cliche on occasion, but given the book was bringing controversial feminist ideas to a mainly conservative Moroccan audience the simple style would have wider appeal than a more literary text seeking audience in the West .
Overall a three and a half star and certainly worth reading .
PS . There were a few short stories in my translation but I dnf'd some of these .