The Malta Independent on Sunday
Irrepressible under huge stress
Noel Grima This is a translation by Jean Paul Borg of the book Sharon and My Mother-in-Law which won the Viareggio Prize in Italy and was translated in 20 languages.
Mr Borg says he met the author at the Festival Mediterranja talLetteratura held in Malta in 2012 and was so fascinated by the vivacious author he set about translating one chapter from the book and then ended up translating it all.
The Sharon of the title is none other than Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Chatila, the man who burst on Temple Mount and almost provoked a war.
Why is he linked with the author’s mother-in-law? That’s because the author says at one point she is ready to pardon Sharon anything that he did but not that he lumped her with her mother-in-law for over a month.
This comment reveals the author – irrepressible under huge stress.
It was certainly no joke to live in Ramallah when the Jewish forces were closing in on Arafat and the Palestinians were under siege and curfew.
Nevertheless, Suad keeps her spirit up even when facing huge problems. Professionally, she is an architect charged with preserving the historical buildings of the West Bank, which are being bombed to smithereens by the Israeli forces.
She is living separated from her husband who is either out of Ramallah when she is in or in when she is abroad.
Born in Amman when it was very easy to travel between Amman, Jaffa, Damascus and other cities of the Middle East, she finds herself, and fellow Palestinians, blocked in, not just by the Great Wall, but also by checkpoints, barbed wire, Israeli tanks, curfews and what not.
For me what impressed me most was how people still tried to go on with their lives in the middle of bombing and mayhem.
And that is where her motherin-law comes in. Living right across Arafat’s office, the mother-in-law is cut off from everything and accepts to be helped out. But that includes a 96-year-old climbing over walls to escape from the Israeli tanks. What makes saving her a dire job is her character which is still set and fixed at a time when there was no war. Meals must be had at precise times and when summer time comes in, they must be delayed by an hour.
Apart from this, the book illustrates life under occupation but in a way that shows that an irrepressible spirit can at times turn tables on the mighty Israeli army.
Living in an occupied zone, one inevitably comes in close contact with the occupier and Suad invents all sorts of games to keep the aggressor at bay. But reading between the lines one realizes the compromises that the besieged are forced into just to get simple things like a permit to travel abroad.
Being an academician who has studied abroad, Suad is intellectually head and shoulders above the Israeli boy soldiers who have power in their hands and who can, and
frequently do, humiliate the Palestinians as an inferior race. Many times, she gets what she wants, mostly by dint of a woman’s innate courage and inventiveness. Many times, not always. She does not always win. On the contrary, she only wins in rare occasions.