Edwar al-Charrat (1926–2015)

"Safranerde" handelt von der Kindheit und Adoleszenz eines koptischen Jungen, der in ärmlichen Verhältnissen, jedoch trotzdem behütet von seiner Familie, im Alexandrien der 30-er und 40-er Jahre des 20. Jahrhunderts aufwächst. Al-Charrat schildert daran einerseits das friedliche Zusammenleben der Kulturen im multikulturellen Unterägypten dieser Zeit, andererseits aber auch die staatliche Oppression, welche zunächst von britischen Besatzern, später von ägyptischen Nationalisten ausgeht.

Zwar bezeichnet der Verlag al-Charrats Werk als Roman, tatsächlich handelt es sich aber um eine Aneinanderreihung von neun Geschichten, die, mit Ausnahme der Person des Hauptprotagonisten, kaum miteinander in Verbindung stehen. Die einzelnen Geschichten wiederrum haben zudem keine chronologische Handlung. Der Autor springt von Absatz von Absatz in der Zeit und wechselt auch des öfteren die Erzählperspektive. Weiters variert die Darstellungsweise und verlässt al-Charrat mehrmals den Boden des Realismus. Diese fehlende Struktur macht das Lesen schwer: al-Charrat hatte scheinbar vor, ein buntes Mosaik des alexandrinischen Lebens der 30-er und 40-er zu schaffen, gelungen ist ihm lediglich ein sperriger Irrgarten.… (mais)

I'm not a stupid person - I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, but I didn't really 'get' this. Had it not been for my World Challenge I probably wouldn't have finished it!

It takes place over the course of one night and is about a Priest who thinks he's on the verge of death looking back on his life. I read the first page or so in the library and thought it sounded quite good, but I found it rather dull, to be honest.

I've since read about it on the internet and have come across phrases such as 'Masterpiece', 'Beautifully written' and 'Critically Acclaimed' - I haven't come across a bad review (although to be fair I haven't looked at many and I haven't checked Amazon yet), but I didn't really think very much happened.

The other thing that put me off is that although it's not a long book (130 pages in the paperback copy I read) and is one-and-a-half line spacing - it's all one long paragraph - there isn't a single break from start to finish. I suppose it's meant to help the story flow, but as it took me a few days (mostly because I wasn't enjoying it - normally I'd be able to read a book of this size in one sitting) it felt disjointed because I had no option but to stop in the middle of text.

Parts of the priest's life-story were more interesting than others - so I didn't hate it - but it's put me off trying anything else of his.… (mais)

In Stones of Bobello, Al-Kharrat uses a series of impressionistic vignettes to tell the story of a Coptic boy's experience living with his extended family in the small Egyptian town of Tarrana sometime in the late 1930s. At one level, I was reminded in a strange way of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon stories; tales of people that in the end reveal more the nature of place than of person; the writing, of course, bears no similarity.
Al-Karrat's adolescent narrator is confronted with, with growing realizations of the distinctions between man and woman, young and old, sick and well, pure and impure, tradition and modernity and I think particularly individuality and community. Perhaps this somewhat philosophical bent and the age of the character explain the parallel other reviewers have drawn to Proust, but I found the writing far more immediate and the philosophy far less didactic.
Some of the language felt strained and disjointed, but its hard to know how much of this lies in translation. I also prefer a story with a little more narrative through-line to glue everything together.
I definitely recommend the author, but I would suggest starting with one of his other works.… (mais)