海角大神

'The Kindness of Enemies' is Caine Prize-winner Leila Aboulela鈥檚 most ambitious novel to date

A professor, her student, and his mother must learn to see beyond stereotypes.   

Natasha Wilson has done everything she can to jettison the less mainstream parts of her identity 鈥� leaving behind her real last name, her father鈥檚 Muslim faith, and trading her birth country of Sudan for Scotland. As part of her willingness to conform, the college professor volunteered to be the member of her university whose duty it is to report suspected radicalized students to the authorities.

But a student, his mom, and an antique scimitar threaten to undo her careful deletions in The Kindness of Enemies, Caine Prize winner Leila Aboulela鈥檚 most ambitious novel to date.

Since her first novel, 鈥淭he Translator,鈥� a reimagining of 鈥淛ane Eyre鈥� between a Muslim secretary and her agnostic boss, Aboulela has used fiction as a way to explore questions of faith and identity. In fact, she has said that it was the 鈥渃ulture shock鈥� of moving to Scotland from Sudan that turned her into a writer.
鈥淚 found myself praying in a place that had stopped praying,鈥� Aboulela told a standing-room- only audience at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in 2012. 鈥淥ne day 鈥� I tried to write a letter to the editor. Fiction came out instead.鈥�

鈥淭he Kindness of Enemies,鈥� her fifth novel, is her most complex, nuanced letter yet. Aboulela moves surefootedly over potential chasms as the plot shifts between Natasha鈥檚 story and the real life tale of a ransomed boy raised in exile, a captured Georgian princess, and the charismatic leader of a 19th-century rebellion against imperialist Russia.

Natasha鈥檚 student Osama 鈥淥z鈥� Raja and his mother, Malak, are descendants of Imam Shamil, who launched successful campaigns in the Caucasus against the czar鈥檚 army for more than a decade. They inherited his scimitar, which Malak, an actress stuck in roles like a witch in 鈥淢acbeth鈥� and a mom in a 鈥淐onan the Barbarian鈥� remake, jokes that she鈥檒l take it to 鈥淎ntiques Roadshow鈥� if she ever finds herself penniless. Natasha, who is doing research on Shamil, travels to their home to see the artifact, but finds herself drawn to his descendants instead. 听

鈥淲hat I like best about his days is the certainty. Everything was clear cut,鈥� says Oz of his ancestor. 鈥淪hamil and his people were the goodies; the Russians were the baddies. The Caucasus belonged to the Muslims, the tsar鈥檚 army were the invaders.鈥�

Of course, history only looks simple from a distance, and over the course of 鈥淭he Kindness of Enemies,鈥� Aboulela does her best to confound those expectations.

The second part of her novel opens in 1839, when Shamil鈥檚 oldest son, Jamaleldin, is taken hostage by the czar鈥檚 army. Instead of being thrown in prison, he is raised as a courtier and develops a taste for music, theater, dance, and rich living 鈥� all of which are verboten in his father鈥檚 spartan religious kingdom. An outsider with one foot in both worlds, Jamaleldin develops the uncomfortable ability to see from both adversaries鈥� perspectives.

鈥淭he Russians believed the Chechens were wily and suspicious,鈥� Jamaleldin thinks. 鈥淭he Chechens believed the Russians were aggressive and treacherous. They were both right, they were both wrong.鈥�

A decade later, to get his son back, Shamil takes Princess Anna Elinichna and her son captive. As the granddaughter of the last king of Georgia, Anna, while outraged and afraid for herself and her son, finds herself involuntarily sympathetic to the warrior fighting to keep his mountain people free.

Both the Russian emperor and the 鈥渂arbarian鈥� chieftain treat their hostages with their own idea of honor. But their courtesies, however sincerely meant, do little to spare Jamaleldin and Anna, both of whom are so changed by their experiences that they wonder if they will ever be able to return to the life they knew.

Back in 2010, Aboulela鈥檚 other characters are wondering pretty much the same thing. Oz is picked up by the authorities for questioning about possible terrorist leanings, leaving Malak frantic with worry and Natasha torn between helping her friend and protecting herself from the fallout. Her computer has been confiscated and her apartment broken into. She鈥檚 facing a formal reprimand at work, and her ill father wants her to come to Sudan.

Natasha, the lone survivor of her Russian mother鈥檚 and Sudanese father鈥檚 marriage, has always regarded herself as an unsuccessful amalgamation of East and West: 鈥淚 was a failed hybrid, made up of unalloyed selves.鈥� Now, with her carefully constructed Western life in free-fall, she fumbles toward a more unified whole.

If Aboulela were less deft, 鈥淭he Kindness of Enemies鈥� would come across as a heavy-handed polemic. Instead, the empathy with which she draws characters trying to straddle shifting fault lines emerges as a vital ingredient to understanding our own less-than-simple times.
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Yvonne Zipp is the Monitor鈥檚 fiction critic.