Beyond Achebe: Reading the Continent

I came across this book through a post on the Arabist's excellent blog--it was entitled A Libyan Novel You Should Read. The author of the post--Ursula Lindsey--wrote such a great opening hook to describe the books' author that I've included it here:

Alessandro Spina was a Syrian Maronite who grew up in Ben Ghazi, was educated and wrote in Italian, and over the course of 40 years penned an extraordinary cycle of novels about the bloody establishment, brief flourishing and troubled aftermath of the Italian colony in Libya.

So a novel by a Catholic Syrian that grew up in Libya, was educated in Italy and wrote in Italian and his work has only recently been translated into English...awesome.

Lindsey also writes a very thorough and lengthy article on Spina: A Stage Across the Sea: An unjustly-neglected Libyan novelist captured the twisted logic of colonialism, past and present.

Confines of the Shadow is the first of a three volume collection that texturizes the history of Libya. The second two volumes have yet to be translated so you will have to wait for the exciting conclusion. The book's translator, Naffis-Sahely, does a really beautiful job with an introduction that captures the labor of love he completed to bring this collection to the Anglophone readers (read the intro here courtesy of google books). Naffis-Sahely also has a great blog/website that is a testament to his talent and breadth of scholarship. Prior to his superb translation (and really re-working/updating of the book), this gem had been largely forgotten.

Now that Spina's work is once again being read--this tome should easily ascend to the top of the reading list for any budding middle east/maghreb/european history scholar/foreign area officer/foreign service officer (hopefully I caught enough categories there).

Perhaps the most incredible part of Confines is its relevance today. Take for instance the comments by one Italian soldier concerning Italy foray into Libya:

Just as a language is only useful in the area in which it is spoken, and is pointless outside of it, so it goes with Europe’s liberal moral values, which don’t extend anywhere south of the Mediterranean. As soon as one reaches the other coastline, one is ordered to do the exact opposite prescribed by God’s commandments: kill, steal, blaspheme … Once the Turkish garrison was defeated and a few key locations on the coast were occupied, we found a vast, obscure country stretching out before us, into which we were afraid to venture. Thus, we cloistered ourselves in the cities while waiting for daylight. Instead, the night is getting deeper, darker, deadlier and teeming with demons.

This is a novel that should have been mandatory reading for all western countries before we even thought about getting involved in the Qaddafi overthrow. And while, Spina's collection did win literary recognition during its time, his keen analysis into the Italian ethos likely did him no favors in winning widespread popularity:

Italy’s obsession with catching up with Europe’s great powers is impeding its culture from recognising the legitimacy of other civilisations. We employ reason merely as an instrument in our attempt to imitate a superior model. We disdain civilisations to the south of us; in fact, it’s as if they embodied exactly what we wanted to escape. We’re a backward country that always keeps its eyes on the other European capitals: Vienna, Paris or London. If Venice had led the Italian unification effort, things might have turned out otherwise, but instead it was led by Piedmont, a lowly vassal of France, and we are the victims of those provincial beginnings. Italian culture seems to atrophy part of our organs. It’s no use trying to educate oneself, or to read books written elsewhere; whatever we do, a congenital mediocrity clings to us like a bad smell.

The genius of these stories is that much of what Spina writes transcends the particularity of the Italian colonial experience in the specific country of Libya:

Generosity cannot overcome our fundamental problem: is our presence here legitimate? What right do we have to interfere in their destinies? Did anyone ask us to bring order to their world? (location 3268)

On my part this is not meant as a commentary on past US/Western involvement in the middle east and north africa, however, these are important questions that should at least be considered and publicly debated within governments and wider society prior to intervention/invasion somewhere. Finally, Spina displays his gift for capturing what it is to be a foreigner in another country as he notes that presence and weapons will never confer acceptance.

 The problem with America is that it makes you dream. 

This may well have been the last unspoken dying sigh of Thula–the protagonist in Pen/Faulkner Award-winning author Mbolo Mbue’s second novel How Beautiful We Were (see my review of her terrific debut novel Behold the Dreamers here). The novel brings the macro story of America’s violent clash with the African continent down to the micro, local level as the reader witnesses the village of Kosawa’s multi-generational struggle with the fictional American oil company Pexton. As the story unfolds, however, it’s clear that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.  If only Ta-Nehisi Coates were present at Kosawa to echo the same warning he gave to his own son in Between the World and Me (see my review here):

“Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”

Unfortunately for Kosawa, there is no governmental escape valve to protect it from the unquenchable hunger for natural resources. They have a government which neither represents nor protects them. In its place there is only a brutal self-interested dictatorship focused on wealth and power consolidation.  Thus what begins as a violent assault on their land–the violent splitting of ground, the ebullient soiling of rivers becomes a harbinger for the inevitable destruction that is coming for the village and its people. 

Kosawa holds out hope they can resist though, and with the help of a well-meaning NGO are able to send one of their own–Thula–to be educated in the United States.  As Thula’s years in the U.S. pass by, the village tries to resist successive encroachments from Pexton, pinning all of their hope on Thula’s eventual return believing she will return with the knowledge and connections to defeat the hated oil company.  Having studied America’s civil rights movement, Thula eventually returns as a fiery activist who believes she can replicate the same success in her own country.  

But in the end, there is no amount of western education, peaceful protesting, or violent revolution that can stop the hunger for more (it’s notable that only violent attacks provoked any level of progress against Pexton and the corrupt government). The 400 years following Africa’s “discovery” already illustrated the destructive effects of this development (i.e., hunger for more) at the local level, of things falling apart for the Kosawa’s and Thula’s of the continent..  How Beautiful We Were’s power comes in its naked sadness–Mbue is restrained as she refuses to offer a hopeful note about the plight of this fictional country–instead she offers a cold and despairing eulogy: 

“Someday, when you're old, you'll see the the ones who came to kill us and the ones who'll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”

Looking for book ideas? Check out our 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 reading lists!

For further reading and study: