![]() For every cartographic ellipse there is one just the same for her homeland. The reader is at once taken to the bridge, the park, and the avenue, juxtaposed to the village where the character lived and the Cairo her parents used to know. ![]() The story is at its best when Tahawy employs parallelism in the narrative as she explores the neighbourhood of Brooklyn. When not in danger of an emotional breakdown, she relishes her own sense of inadequacy and incompetence, in an almost self-exalting manner. Like the narrative, the protagonist is heavy, weary and in a constant state of existentialist ennui. Tahawy’s style combines several techniques of storytelling there is a hint of magical realism, ethnographic writing and a deftly-weaved memoir. The central character in the story is an almost middle-aged woman who escapes her native country and ends up in Brooklyn, amidst a plethora of displaced, outcast and diverse ethnic communities. ![]() ![]() Miral Al-Tahawy’s latest novel is an autumnal narrative taking the form of a cartographic exploration of an Egyptian emigrant and her child in a neighbourhood of New York. Brooklyn Heights, Miral Al-Tahawy, Cairo: Dar Merit 2010, pp261 ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |