A review by kamckim
The Story of Zahra by Hanan Al-Shaykh

1.0

These are personal opinions, not professional reviews, so I just want to ask what all the hype over this book is about. The protagonist, Zahra, is unselfish and completely weird. She never finds her footing, and I don't have sympathy for any of the characters in this novel. They are selfish and cruel. The second part, in war-torn Beirut, is the best part. I kept trying to read the woman as the embodiment of the state (in this case, the country of Lebanon), but I just couldn't get through all the selfishness and opportunism. Those overrode any literary merit of the book. I know why it's banned by several Muslim countries--the sex and the types of sex in this book are gross and unredemptive. If this is a thinly veiled portrait of Lebanon at war, then the author seems to be saying that Lebanon is as dysfunctional as the "mad" narrator and her family. I wish Lebanese writers would move on from the war. It will never make sense, so don't subject the reader to your attempts to come to terms with it. This one was a waste of time.