A Land Without Jasmine E-Book

Wajdi Al-Ahdal

• Herausgeber: Garnet Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A Land without Jasmine is a sexy, satirical detective story about the sudden disappearance of a young female student from Yemen's Sanaa University. Each chapter is narrated by a different character beginning with Jasmine herself. The mystery surrounding her disappearance comes into clearer focus with each self-serving and idiosyncratic account provided by an acquaintance, family member, or detective. As the details surrounding her sudden disappearance emerge the mystery deepens. Sexual depravity, honour, obsession; the motives are numerous and the suspects plentiful. It seems that everyone wants a piece of the charming young student. Family, friends, fellow students and nosey neighbours are quick to make their own judgements on the case, but the truth may be far stranger than anyone anticipates. This short novel has echoes of both the Sherlock Holmes stories and The Catcher in the Rye, as in addition to the mystery and a murder, the novel contains candid discussions of coming of age in a land of sexual repression. Wajdi al-Ahdal is a satirical author with a fresh and provocative voice and an excellent eye for telling the details of his world.

Leseprobe

A LAND

WITHOUT JASMINE

Wajdi al-Ahdal

Translated by William Maynard Hutchins

A Land Without Jasmine

Published by

Garnet Publishing Limited

8 Southern Court

South Street

Reading

RG1 4QS

UK

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Copyright © Wajdi al-Ahdal, 2012

Translation copyright © William Maynard Hutchins, 2012

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-85964-312-9

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by Samantha Barden

Jacket design by Haleh Darabi

Printed and bound in Lebanon by International Press:

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To you who are without flaw I will explain this as well: that it is the most secret wisdom and the supreme form of knowledge that allows you to attain ultimate perfection.

The Bhagavad Gita

CONTENTS

About the Author

Note from the Translator

1. The Queen

2. The Minion of Pleasure and Power

3. A Man Blinded to This Disconcerting World by Supernatural Delusions

4. The Sacrificial Lamb

5. The Sceptic whose Scepticism Disappears Like a Scattering Cloud

6. The Ascetic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wajdi Muhammad Abduh al-Ahdal is a Yemeni novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and dramatist. Born in 1973, he received a degree in literature from Sanaa University. He won the Afif prize for a short story in 1997, a gold medal for a dramatic text in the Festival for Arab Youth in Alexandria, Egypt in 1998 and the youth prize of the President of the Republic of Yemen for a short story in 1999. He is currently employed in Dar al-Kutub, the National Library in Sanaa.

He has published several collections of short stories: Zahrat al-Abir (The Passerby’s Flower, Sanaa, 1997), Surat al-Battal (Portrait of an Unemployed Man, Amman, 1998), Ratanat al-Zaman al-Miqmaq (Gibberish in a Time of Ventriloquism, Sanaa, 1998) and Harb lam Ya‘alam bi-Wuqu‘iha Ahad (A War No One Knew About, Sanaa, 2001). His novels are: Qawarib Jabaliya (Mountain Boats, Beirut, 2002), Himar Bayna al-Aghani (A Donkey Among the Songs or A Donkey in the Choir, Beirut 2004), Faylasuf al-Kurantina (Quarantine Philosopher, Sanaa, 2007) and Bilad bila Sama (A Land Without Sama [or a Sky], published here as A Land Without Jasmine, Sanaa, 2008). His screenplay al-Ughniya al-Mashura (The Enchanted Song) was published in Sanaa in 2006 and his play al-Suqut min Shurfat al-‘Alam (Falling off the Balcony of the World) was published in Sanaa in 2007.

Al-Ahdal’s novel Mountain Boats proved controversial. An extremist campaign against the book drove him into exile and the book’s publisher faced charges. When the German Nobel Laureate Günter Grass visited Yemen in December 2002 for a cultural conference, he was received by the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to whom he mentioned al-Ahdal’s situation and asked the President to protect him. Al-Ahdal was then allowed to return to his country. Himar bayna al-Aghani is dedicated to Günter Grass in appreciation. Although al-Ahdal’s passport was seized at Sanaa Airport in the spring of 2010 he was later allowed to travel.

NOTE FROM THE TRANSLATOR

For this translation I started with the 2008 Sanaa edition published by by Markaz Ibadi lil-Dirasat wa-l-Nashr. I then checked my translation against the author’s computer file and added three sexually explicit passages that had been deleted from the published version.

Chapters 1 and 2 appeared in a slightly different form in Banipal Magazine 36, Autumn/Winter 2009, pp. 178–199.

William Maynard Hutchins, 2012

1

THE QUEEN

When I enter the bathroom first thing in the morning I feel uncertain and anxious. I start to examine myself in the mirror while my fingers probe my feet, belly, chest and head. Then I shudder involuntarily. Once I’m sure that I haven’t lost any of my body I praise God and sigh with relief. Returning to my senses I realize I’ve merely had a beautiful, harmless, enjoyable dream, one of those delightful dreams when a girl sees herself as a bride on her wedding night.