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A review by rosseroo
Passage of Tears by Abdourahman A. Waberi
2.0
In my quest to read at least one book from every country in the world, I picked up this slim novel by a Djiboutian expatriate author. I'm glad is was slim, because its mix of obvious post-colonialism and hyper-intellectualism totally failed to move or connect with me in any way.
The story (not that there really is one) is about expat Djibril, who managed to do well in school, emigrate to Canada, and works in risk assessment (basically economic espionage) for a bland Western corporation (Adorno Location Services) that might be front for the CIA or something like that. He's been sent back to his native Djibouti to report on the political conditions there, and his thoughts are recorded in diary entries.
Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, comes the voice of his twin brother, Djamal. He didn't excel at school, drifted into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalist recruiters, and now sits in a jail cell where he tends to the ailing leader of his particular group and receives reports of his brother's arrival and movements. His writing is a fanatic's screed of visceral hatred for his brother and what will happen to him. But the paper he's writing on is apparently pages from a book or letters to Walter Benjamin, which he then starts to ingest. I have to confess that with only glancing familiarity with Benjamin, I was hard-pressed to connect his life with the thin narrative here.
By the end, the book's path felt like a rather obvious metaphor for the effects of colonialism, globalization, and reactionary forces, with the brothers representing the two extremes of a country struggling to find its own identity. There's plenty of regret and anger between the two voices, but I didn't get much depth from any of it.
The story (not that there really is one) is about expat Djibril, who managed to do well in school, emigrate to Canada, and works in risk assessment (basically economic espionage) for a bland Western corporation (Adorno Location Services) that might be front for the CIA or something like that. He's been sent back to his native Djibouti to report on the political conditions there, and his thoughts are recorded in diary entries.
Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, comes the voice of his twin brother, Djamal. He didn't excel at school, drifted into the orbit of Islamic fundamentalist recruiters, and now sits in a jail cell where he tends to the ailing leader of his particular group and receives reports of his brother's arrival and movements. His writing is a fanatic's screed of visceral hatred for his brother and what will happen to him. But the paper he's writing on is apparently pages from a book or letters to Walter Benjamin, which he then starts to ingest. I have to confess that with only glancing familiarity with Benjamin, I was hard-pressed to connect his life with the thin narrative here.
By the end, the book's path felt like a rather obvious metaphor for the effects of colonialism, globalization, and reactionary forces, with the brothers representing the two extremes of a country struggling to find its own identity. There's plenty of regret and anger between the two voices, but I didn't get much depth from any of it.