A while ago Our Book Reviews Online took part in a blog tour for this, a new collection of Leila Aboulela's short stories, but at the time I hadn't had chance to read it due to family issues. I was aware of her writing though, having read The Kindness of Enemies some years ago, and was intrigued to read these stories.
I started, a bit oddly, in the middle of the book. Our blog tour post had been an extract from the story The Ostrich, and having read that snippet, I wanted to finish the story. A young women, Samra, is returning from a trip home to Khartoum, back to join her husband in London, experiencing the culture (and weather) shock that hits every time she makes this journey. Her husband, although Sudanese like herself, is desperate to appear at home in London, determined to embrace British customs and habits as his own. His wife should walk alongside, not behind, him; she shouldn't cover her hair - as he believes others will view these things as 'backward, barbaric'. She meanwhile longs for her African home, and the easy, familiar way of life there - an emotion increased by a casual encounter on the flight with someone she went to school with. Her bittersweet memories of the past make her begin to question her life, but does she really regret the marriage that brought her to England, or is this a mood that will pass once she settles back into life with her husband? Samra's situation, caught off guard as she tries to readjust to her life in London, is brought vividly and sympathetically before the reader.
Echoes of this theme are found throughout the other stories too. The characters are torn between past and future, religion and relationships, and, most importantly, two worlds - Africa and the UK - no longer fitting seamlessly in either place, struggling to reconcile the two aspects of their lives. Sometimes Africa is warm, welcoming, vibrant, and Britain, in contrast, wet, cold, cramped, always hovering on the edge of hostility. Seen differently, Britain is modern, a place of opportunity and advancement, whereas Africa is old-fashioned with limited prospects.
Similar ideas are found in Expecting To Give, in which a pregnant woman finds her experience doesn't live up to the version seen in glossy parenting mags, and Pages Of Fruit, where a reader's expectations of her favourite author don't match the reality.
I found this a moving, thought-provoking, poignant collection, dealing as it does with the search for 'home', and the difficulties faced by migrants attempting in live in an environment and culture very different to their own. Aboulela writes in a way which brings to life both the outer physical world - the heat of Khartoum or Cairo, off-set by the delight of icy air-conditioning, or the damp, dull streets of london or Aberdeen - and the internal conflicts of her characters. I wonder whether I've made these seem rather down-beat stories, but for the most part they aren't; at the end of our short peep into their lives, characters are generally left hopeful for the future.
Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Telegram
Genre - Adult contemporary fiction, short stories
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