| Sunday, April 29, 2007 1:05PM | | | | Four Visions of Yasmina Khadra | Posted By: Jane Ciabattari
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| Tags: New World Voices, The Believer, Salman Rushdie, Dave Eggers, Yasmina Khadra, Colin Harrison, Niccolo Amminiti, Heidi Julavits, Uzodinma Iweala, Isobel Hoving, Miranda July, Eric Bogosian | Friday night onstage in the exquisite wood-paneled auditorium at The Morgan Library, New York Noir novelist and Scribner editor Colin Harrison asks a question of Mohammad Moulessehoul, the expatriate Algerian soldier who under the pseudonym Yasmina Khadra is a best-selling author in France, honored with the 2001 Medaille d'Or de l'Academie Francaise and the 2006 Prix des Libraires.
Harrison, filling in as PEN World Voices Festival "Mediterranean Noir" moderator for Alice Sebold, who broke her leg, has neatly set up the evening but quoting Jean-Claude Izzo, who in his essay, "The Blue and the Black," writes that the Mediterranean gave the world the first noir books (Cain and Abel in the Bible, the Greek tragedies) as well as Camus's "The Stranger," which Izzo calls the first modern Mediterranean crime novel.
Khadra has just read, in French, from his 1997 novel "Morituri,"while the English translation of the passage runs across the screen above his head. The passage ends, "After what I have seen, I will never again be a happy man." (Le Monde: "Yasmina Khadra's trilogy transcends crime, it examines 'crime' in the context of a deprived people, shorn of any civil rights.")
"Mohammad," Harrison begins.
"Yasmina," corrects the author.
"Mohammad...."
"Yasmina," insists the author.
Khadra used the pseudonym until 2001, when he announced to the world, Reader, I'm a he. "I was a writer before I was a soldier," he says. "I was eleven years underground. My only fear is that someone will prohibit me from writing. Now I'm a free man and the only thing I want to do is write."
II
Saturday night onstage at The New School, Yasmina Khadra has been paired with Nigerian American novelist Uzodinma Iweala, who is about to enter medical school, in a ten-minute "Writer Speed Dating" reality performance faciliated by The Daily Show's John Hodgman, who explains the concept as a "completely Platonic microdialogue" between writers.
Khadra displays an unexpected gift for delivering lines.
Hodgman offers both authors a glass of wine (The Believer's co-founder Heidi Julavits is introducer, long-suffering wine pourer and glass schlepper). Iweala eagerly accepts. Skipping the go-between in the "translator jumpseat," Khadra declines: "I'm a Muslim. I don't drink wine." Pause. "I drink vodka." Laughter. Uncanned.
Khadra explains his need for a pseudonym: "My country, which isn't like the United States, has censorship. To continue writing, I had to use a pseudonym. I chose a female pseudonym so I could take advantage of all the advantage the world offers women." He also says that as a soldier, he learned to follow directions. "In the army we have a head to carry a helmet, not to think." Laughter.
Prompted by a question from Iweala, Khadra says " I believe that my trilogy has helped westerners to understand the Arab world," and mentions that one of his books has sold 400,000 copies in France. Hodgman chides him for being so forthcoming with sales figures.
"I'm in the United States," Khadra replies. More laughter.
When it is Khadra's turn to ask the scripted questions, he cracks up the audience. "What did you do this morning, yes or no?" Even more laughter.
With the Iweala/Khadra duo, "The Believer event," with Salman Rushdie and Dave Eggers in the house, Robert Polito graceful as always welcoming the crowd, Eric Bogisian as laid-back emcee, an extended shaggy dog auction of a half-used box of Riccola cough drops, a copy of August Wilson's "Jitney" and an AARP card by deadpan performer Miranda July (she raised slightly over $100 and gave it away to someone in the audience), Bogosian back to read from his new novel (what will we do when the subset of baby boomers so rhapsodically proficient in the use of the F word fades from the scene?) and a earlier "speed dating" segment featuring Niccolo Ammaniti and Isabel Hoving, ends in yes, even more gales of laughter.
III
Standing on the sidewalk outside the New School after The Believer event, in a spring mist, Yasmina Khadra exchanges kisses on both cheeks, French-style, with a man who is clearly a friend. He is content. Big events over. His trilogy honored. He strides off down the Avenue of the Americas, the exotic towers of Jefferson Market in the distance behind him.
IV
In her review of the third book in Khadra's trilogy in Friday's New York Times, Janet Maslin notes that Khadra is sometimes compared to Camus, and concludes: "If “The Swallows of Kabul” remains the most wrenching and imaginative book in this trilogy, “The Attack” now seems the most artificial and didactic. “The Sirens of Baghdad” falls somewhere in between, with a blunt story line that has real passion behind it. The author’s ear for Iraqi despair, fury and violation is keen, even as he manipulates the book’s ideological posturing to reflect different points of view. In the end, this cautionary tale sounds more like real history.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/books/26masl.html?n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%2fBook%20Reviews | | | |
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