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Copyright © 2016 by Nicole Fares
Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, New York 13244-5290
All Rights Reserved
First Edition 2016
161718192021654321
Originally published in Arabic as 32 (Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 2010)
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit www.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.
ISBN: 978-0-8156-1069-4 (paperback)978-0-8156-5370-7 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Available from the publisher upon request.
Manufactured in the United States of America
CONTENTS
From the Author
From the Translator
Translator’s Introduction
32 Sahar Mandour
Glossary
FROM THE AUTHOR
To the dearest ones:
Maya Chami, Mayssa’ El-Husseini, Lena Merhej, Ali Cherri, and Remi Bonhomme.
Love and respect to Adla Bekdache and Leen Hashem
FROM THE TRANSLATOR
To my brother, George Fares
Translator’s Introduction
Sahar Mandour, named “one of Beirut’s new movers and shakers” by Wallpaper Magazine, was born in 1977 to an Egyptian father and a Lebanese mother. She studied psychology at L’Université Saint Joseph in Beirut and received her master’s degree in media and the Middle East from the University of London. Mandour is a journalist for the Assafir newspaper and a social activist who was recognized by HELEM (a Lebanese non-profit organization working to improve the legal and social status of lesbian, gay, and transgender people) for her contribution to the rights and social freedom of the LGBTQ community in Lebanon.
Mandour’s first novel, I’ll Draw a Star on Vienna’s Forehead, published in Beirut in 2007, is a whimsical, satirical biography of a young Arab woman searching for an identity she might call her own. Two years later, she wrote A Beiruti Love (2009), a novel about romance and relationships in Beirut, which was, like 32, a best seller at the Arab Book Fair. Her fourth novel, Mina (2013), tells the story of a young Lebanese gay actress.
Mandour’s third novel, 32 (2010), is the first to be translated into English. It is an engaging narration of the life of a young woman and her four female friends in Beirut after the civil war. This eventful period, with its wars, assassinations, terrorism, and the reconstruction of Beirut, remains relevant to those living and experiencing it with ennui and weariness in Lebanon. A lot has happened during this period that is key to understanding the political situation in Lebanon today as well as to understanding its people, especially the younger generation.
There is an experimental quality to this work’s form and style. The novel is a long conversation that shifts from the anonymous narrator speaking to herself, to her friends, and to the reader. She comfortably alternates standard Arabic, the Lebanese dialect, and Egyptian as she moves from one topic to another. Mandour’s style of writing and its complexity carries a voice that is all at once cynical, hopeful yet exhausted, and loaded with dry humor and hurt, which can only be produced by a people all too familiar with war.
What makes this novel valuable as a modern piece of fiction is its honest reflection of the life led by millions in Lebanon: a life that is rarely revealed in contemporary Lebanese literature. Sahar Mandour takes readers to uncomfortable places as they are forced to experience the unfamiliar and absurd in everyday Lebanese life. They are subjected to mundane yet intricate and critical detail as the narrator takes them around Beirut and documents everything she sees. This narration displays Mandour’s journalist skills impeccably. She connects the events and conditions of the people she encounters with the political situation of the country. She asks questions and scrutinizes the answers in an attempt to explain the injustices she encounters, and her inquiry exposes the elites’ accountability and the politicians’ hypocrisy, corruptness, and abuse of power. Mandour controls the flow of the information, gradually introducing the reader to the harsh situations and traumatic events that confine the lives of the Lebanese people and prevent the country from growing out of its political instability.
Furthermore, in 32 Mandour subtly exposes the consequences of postwar redevelopment as new tall, modern buildings replace older ones in the capital. Despite the efforts of activists, journalists, and organizations such as the Association for the Protection of the Lebanese Heritage (APLH) to stop the erasure of what is left of Lebanon’s history, ancient archeological sites (some that date back to 500 BC) continue to be destroyed as skyscrapers take their place. The novel reminds us of the red and blue shutters of the old apartment buildings, the Ottoman-style architecture, and the Venetian windows and arches that once epitomized Beirut. It introduces us to Lebanese folklore vis-à-vis the architecture as the narrator speaks of actors and singers who once marked the height of the art scene in the Middle East. She shows the changing landscape of Lebanon through its music by juxtaposing the old folklore and Western music. The mixing of Western and Middle Eastern styles and instruments makes Lebanese music a highly unique genre, and the narrator embraces it while showing how the old music is disappearing much like the old buildings.
Mandour also sheds light on life in Lebanon from the perspective of women as she discusses the positive and negative aspects of the female experience in 32. She succeeds in exposing the complex
