'Adua' explores the relationship between colonizer and colonized
Before Igiaba Scego鈥檚 novel, Adua, even begins, what鈥檚 instantly striking is the 鈥淐ontents鈥� page, which reveals a trio of chapter titles 鈥� 鈥淎dua,鈥� 鈥淭alking-To,鈥� 鈥淶oppe鈥� 鈥� that repeat over 30 chapters. Adua is the daughter, Zoppe the father, and the 鈥淭alking-To鈥� segments are Zoppe鈥檚 admonishments of Adua which, ironically, link the two more closely on the page than they ever were during their lives.
As the narrative opens, Zoppe is dead and Adua holds the deed to the family home in Somalia, relatively peaceful after decades of upheaval. After 37 years of living in Rome, Adua is unsure whether she will return to her birth country: 鈥淚 wonder if I ... will be able to build what future I have left in our land.鈥� Her current life includes a younger refugee husband, whom she refers to as 鈥渁 Titanic, someone who鈥檇 risked drowning at sea to come here.鈥� Adua is fully aware that their relationship is conspicuously practical: 鈥淗e needed a house, a teat, a bowl of soup, a pillow, some money, hope, any semblance of relief. He needed a mama, a hooyo [mother], a whore, a woman, a sharmutta [prostitute], me.鈥�
Lacking true companionship, Adua regularly visits nearby Piazza della Minerva, where she talks to a 鈥渓ittle marble elephant holding up the smallest obelisk in the world.鈥� Dismissing the strangers who point fingers 鈥溾�檃t that black lady talking to herself,鈥欌�� she confides, 鈥淚 need to be heard, otherwise my words will fade away and be lost.鈥�
When Adua was 鈥渟even or eight years at most,鈥� Zoppe cleaved her from the caretakers Adua and her sister believed were their parents, unaware that Adua鈥檚 birth had caused her mother鈥檚 death. While her sister readily 鈥渂owed to this new father,鈥� Adua was whipped into submission and fainted. 鈥淲hen I came to,鈥� she recalls, 鈥淚 had become an actress. No one would ever see my real face again.鈥� At 17, Adua flees Somalia 鈥� and her domineering father 鈥� chasing promises of film stardom. Her one-and-only celluloid performance costs her 鈥渆verything,鈥� and yet she must continue to survive in an unwelcoming foreign country for decades to come.
Zoppe, for all his estrangement, is not unlike Adua. He, too, was a motherless child, and left Somalia for Italy to work as an interpreter, 鈥渁 linguistic ambassador.鈥� Zoppe鈥檚 ability to speak Italian, as well as 鈥淎rabic, Somali, Swahili, Amharic, Tiginya, and several minor languages ... [made him] useful in the coming war,鈥� what would become the Second Italo-Abyssinian War of 1935-1936. As an African in Rome in the 1930s, Zoppe thought he 鈥渨as a miracle"; the local military police, however, react differently and imprison him without cause. Surviving vicious torture, he returns to Somalia, where he works 鈥� with considerable success 鈥� as a translator in Mussolini鈥檚 regime.
Perhaps from guilt, from doubt, or from anger over his inability to protect his child from violent humiliation despite what he already suffered, Zoppe is unrelenting in his criticisms and warnings leveled at this daughter. His 鈥淭alking-To鈥漵 include his justification for Adua鈥檚 forced infibulation, even as he admits that his late wife would never have allowed such mutilation to occur; that butchery will signal the unbridgeable separation between father and daughter. As Adua and Zoppe鈥檚 diverging narratives highlight their mutual failure to communicate, the interstitial 鈥淭alking-To鈥漵 reveal a longing to understand, to connect, even to forgive.
The Italian-born daughter of Somali parents, Scego, who is also a highly-regarded journalist with a PhD in education specializing in postcolonialism and migrant experiences, writes with forthright simplicity and unblinking honesty. Her unadorned sentences 鈥� concisely rendered from the 2015 original Italian by Milan-based translator Jamie Richards 鈥� might initially suggest a straightforward narrative of generational family dysfunction, but Scego鈥檚 ending 鈥淗istorical Note鈥� clearly suggests something more substantial than mere storytelling. Scego notes 鈥渢hree historical moments鈥� that define 鈥淎dua鈥�: 鈥�Italian colonialism, Somalia in the 1970s, and our current moment, when the Mediterranean has been transformed into an open-air tomb for migrants.鈥�
In just over 200 pages, Scego exposes the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized over decades, addresses the personal price of working for (in collusion with?) the colonizer, and examines the ongoing status of peripatetic refugees arriving on Italian shores 鈥� at least those who survive the treacherous journeys. Bearing witness through fiction, Scego鈥檚 鈥淎dua鈥� gives urgent voice to the silent caught between shifting loyalties, abusive power, and nations at war.聽
Terry Hong writes , a book blog for the .
