“Ah la la, Alhumdullilah,” says Yamina, aged 70, as she kicks her burkini-covered legs while in a swimming pool for the first time.
It was “a sweet taste of childhood for someone who never really experienced childhood”, Faiza Guene writes.
And while this scene from a family holiday in south-west France might take place on the last few pages of Guene’s book, Discretion, it reflects so many of the novel’s themes: from the constant push-and-pull of Algerian and French identities, to the reality that women of wartime generations are forced to grow up faster than most.
Guene was born in Paris to Algerian parents, and at the age of 19, published her first novel, Kiffe Kiffe Demain, which has been translated in more than 30 languages.
It was translated to English by Sarah Ardizzone, who has translated Guene’s other novels: Dreams from the Endz, Bar Balto, Men Don’t Cry and, now, Discretion.
Guene’s latest work centres on the story of an Algerian family in France, anchored by Yamina, a matriarch who left Algeria, moving to Morocco and then France following an arranged marriage.
Now, she is the mother of four children, who readers become intimately acquainted with as Guene frequently switches between characters’ perspectives while framing her story.
She writes her novel like one might narrate a film, with a poetic prose that reveals detailed glimpses into the generations of the Taleb family, hardened and shaped by war, immigration and racism.
“I tried through the intimate point of view of a family, to give keys of comprehension to the descendants of colonial history,” Guene tells The National.
She reveals that her family history played a part in inspiring parts of Discretion.
“I started an intimate investigation around the story of my mother from her childhood in the middle of the Algerian war until her exile in France. It became urgent to capture her memory, but by the tool of fiction,” she says.
“We are terribly lacking in storytelling about women like Yamina’s character. They are often forgotten in history but also in fiction. Or they are caricatured.
“My deep desire when I’ve started this novel was to give a voice to this woman; I wanted my readers to change their way of seeing this woman.”
It is by naming this trauma and by exploring this buried anger, by coming out of the silence that we take the path to peace
Faiza Guene,
author
Females from patriarchal cultures, after all, bear much of the brunt of colonialism and immigration.
“Women die so many deaths before the final one,” Guene writes. “Women are murdered by their own world, a thousand times over. Yet they still rise again, morning after morning.”
Although Yamina was uprooted from her home three times, Guene notes, “the breast of this woman is devoid of any bitterness, which is in the order of a miracle when you think about it”.
The novel’s title, Discretion, is telling on many levels, signifying how both women and immigrants are raised to shoulder their burdens in silence.
“Discretion is a concept that is inscribed in us when we have an experience of uprooting: stay invisible to survive,” Guene says. “The resulting discretion becomes yourself, it becomes your way of life and it is transmitted to your children.”
We see this transference of discretion with Yamina’s daughter Malika, who works at a government registry office.
When an Arab man appears in distress, she switches to her mother tongue to help him, but is then reprimanded for her “conduct”. The event becomes a family lunchtime discussion, where Yamina urges her daughter to remain “discreet”.
Despite the motivations that drive immigrants to restart their lives in a new country, often to escape perils of war and poverty, they often end up raising “overburdened” children without realising it, and this theme is central to Discretion.
Numerous clashes between one’s conflicting identities can occur when one’s family is transposed from the East to the West, and Guene highlights the resulting chasm that widens between parents and children.
Yamina’s son Omar, for instance, who grows up to be an Uber driver, plays a PlayStation game ironically hunting down Arab terrorists.
His father, who is past 80, never had the opportunity to “play” anything, and can’t comprehend “this generation of prolonged childhood, reduced responsibilities and limited courage”.
Yamina and her husband were part of the “survival generation” while their children will form the “well-being generation”, Guene writes.
The purpose of her work, however, is not merely to point out differences between generations, but to build a bridge between them, particularly so that children of immigrants can understand their parents’ pasts, and the parts of those histories that they’ve inherited.
Themes of dispossession and exile are essential ways of understanding our current societies. This concerns everyone
While her children expect her to be less complacent, Yamina’s refusal to be angry at the world is, in itself, an act of resistance.
But Guene points out that anger, even when buried, cannot simply disappear.
“Anger is passed on, without anyone realising it,” she writes. She emphasises this when Yamina’s daughter Hannah sees a therapist, who explains that she is experiencing generational trauma — that she has “inherited” the violent and humiliating history of her family.
“In my eyes, it is by naming this trauma and by exploring this buried anger, by coming out of the silence that we take the path to peace,” Guene says.
“Themes of dispossession and exile are essential ways of understanding our current societies. This concerns everyone — the heirs of this story must be able to identify to these stories, to feel understood.”
Discretion is released by Saqi Books on Tuesday, May 31, in a year that marks the 60th anniversary of Algeria’s War of Independence.
“This is an opportunity to pay particular attention to certain aspects of Franco-Algerian history,” Guene says.
“And it’s an opportunity to reclaim these stories, to tell them through the unofficial prism, through the modest people whose words have never been collected.”
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre 6-cyl turbo
Power: 435hp at 5,900rpm
Torque: 520Nm at 1,800-5,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Price: from Dh498,542
On sale: now
Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
John Murray
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
THE LOWDOWN
Romeo Akbar Walter
Rating: 2/5 stars
Produced by: Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment
Directed by: Robby Grewal
Cast: John Abraham, Mouni Roy, Jackie Shroff and Sikandar Kher
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
ZAYED SUSTAINABILITY PRIZE
The bio:
Favourite holiday destination: I really enjoyed Sri Lanka and Vietnam but my dream destination is the Maldives.
Favourite food: My mum’s Chinese cooking.
Favourite film: Robocop, followed by The Terminator.
Hobbies: Off-roading, scuba diving, playing squash and going to the gym.
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
The specs: Rolls-Royce Cullinan
Price, base: Dh1 million (estimate)
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 563hp @ 5,000rpm
Torque: 850Nm @ 1,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 15L / 100km
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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