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Book Reviewed by:A finalist for the 2021 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, a compelling saga of two families that illuminates the lives of women in modern Tunisia.
Tunisia, 1930s. Against the backdrop of a country in turmoil, in search of its identity, the lives and destinies of the members of two important upper-class families of Tunis intertwine: the Ennaifer family, with a rigidly conservative and patriarchal mentality, and the Rassaa, open-minded and progressive.
One terrible night in December 1935, the destiny of both families changes forever when Zbaida Ali Rassaa, the young wife of Mohsen Ennaifer, is accused of having had a clandestine love affair with Tahar Haddad, an intellectual of humble origins known for his union activism and support for women's rights. The events of that fateful night are told by eleven different narrators, members of the two families, who recall them in different historical moments, from the 1940s to the present day. The result is a complex mosaic of secrets, memories, accusations, regrets, and emotions, taking the reader on an exciting journey through the stories of individuals caught up in the upheavals of history.
Excerpt
A Calamity of Noble Houses by Amira Ghenim
My instincts didn't fail me, Hind. At dawn on that cold winter day, they'd already warned me of the ill omen lying in wait for us at Sidi Othman Ennaifer's house.
The harbingers of calamity came in the dead of night, when the hand of Boutelis, the jinn of sleep paralysis, snatched me by the neck out of a deep slumber. The damned creature knelt on my chest, pulling my tongue with his claws and pressing his heavy weight down into my ribs until my bones almost sliced my flesh open. If not for the barrage of prayers I assaulted him with in my head—as my Lella Bashira had taught me—he wouldn't have let me go alive.
In my long life, that jinn of sleep has only visited me twice, Hind. In both cases, the next morning brought an appointment with disaster.
On the morning following his first visit, when I was still a child, I received news of my father's death. Word came down from the mountain while I was in the capital, at Lella ...
Although A Calamity of Noble Houses is a story of an affair, it really isn't a story about an affair. It's a story about women who have the independence to make their own choices and the chasm created within a family by those choices that are seen as unforgivable. While the story is set in Tunisia and within a Muslim family of wealth, Ghenim's novel lands across cultures and continents where husbands and fathers lack the ability to bend women to their will. By default, Ghenim shows, men become unstrung and relentlessly punitive. But the beauty of A Calamity of Noble Houses is that men tell their stories. The elevation of their voices, which reflect their often fragile egos, adds to the narrative. A finalist for the 2021 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, A Calamity of Noble Houses was translated into English by Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil. It is enlightening and melodramatic...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Valerie Morales).
The Republic of Tunisia is a small country in Northern Africa. It was the birthplace of the 2010-11 Arab Spring movement, which saw uprisings due to economic hardship and corruption. Though much of the world was taken off guard by the unrest, Tunisia has always been forward-facing. Once a protectorate of France, it gained its independence in 1956. Moves toward gender equality followed. Women were granted certain rights regarding marriage and custody via a set of laws known as the Personal Status Code (PSC), which eliminated polygamy and clergy intervention in family affairs, identified a legal age women could marry and outlawed forced marriages, and gave women guardianship of children in the event of their father's death. The National ...
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