A Sister to Scheherazade

This is the second volume of a "quartet" and I don't know how it relates and how much it depends on other books. If the characters recur, then it would be advisable to revisit the story on completion.

I wasn't in the mood for Djebar's lyrical, associative, impressionistic style so I don't feel I can do the book justice.

There are two women, Isma who speaks in her own voice, and Hajila whose chapters are told in the second person--it seems Isma is telling her story too.

Isma had, unknown to Hajila, arranged for the latter to become the second wife of Isma's husband. The husband is referred to only as "the man". Isma and "the man" had once been very much in love and have a child together, ten-year-old Meriem. There is also a younger boy, show more Nazim, whose mother is not Isma. Possibly (there is no hint to this in the book) it was the man's affair with Nazim's mother that ended the happiness in Isma's marriage?

In any case, Isma is looking forward to her replacement by Hajila as to her "liberation". For whatever reason she's not divorcing "the man" but they are not to live in the same town. Meriem doesn't like Hajila and asks to go to live with Isma, which is granted.

Hajila is forced into this marriage by her family's poverty. "The man" treats her like a slavey and governess and she herself appears not to expect anything other. There's no communication between them, Hajila spends her days in housework and talks only with the children. One day, while taking them to the park, she sees a woman playing with a baby. The woman, she thinks, must be Arab, native (hennaed hair), but she isn't wearing a veil, her whole being breathes freedom.

Hajila ventures outside one day when the children are in school, just a short distance, then takes off her veil and her cloak and starts walking around the neighbourhood like that. Just walking on her own in the city, without stopping or talking to anyone, is something epic for someone like her.

After six months reprieve (minus the excruciating sexual fondling she must endure when the man ritualistically calls for his ashtray), the man brutally rapes Hajila. She falls pregnant. The man starts drinking a lot and beats and almost kills her. Isma meets her a few times in the baths.

It's not clear to me whether Isma understands Hajila's miserable position, or whether she thinks she had done the poor girl a favour.

The fate of the characters is left hanging for the next volumes, I suppose.

"As you slow down, the woollen veil slips off your head; you try to imagine what you look like, bare-headed, your black hair drawn back. Now your long pigtail, that had been bunched up under the veil, emerges from hiding. You shrink back. Your hands reach for your neck, trembling:
"Out of doors... O Lord! O sweet Messenger of the Lord!"
You walk, you skip. This hawthorn hedge that suddenly appears... you could climb over it easily. On the other side of the street there is a ditch running along a fairly high wall: oh! to be able to look over it and satisfy a mischievous curiosity! You come to a sudden stop; with a dancer's sharp gesture, you shrug one shoulder, then the other; suddenly the woollen cloth falls about your hips, revealing your blouse. The wool of a shroud..." show less

En bok om livet som kvinna i Algeriet. Man kan ju konstatera att jämlikhet mellan könen ligger något efter i den muslimska kulturen. Krävande bok men riktigt fin prosa.

Rystende skildring af kvindeliv i Algeriet. Lidt forvirrende til at begynde med indtil man finder ud af forbindelsen. Krævende, men meget poetisk sprog.

Assi a Djebar,1936 - 2015, 2 Haremsfrauen Isma und Haljila flüchten,