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POSTED: 23 AUGUST 2009

Alaa Al Aswany, Friendly Fire

(Fourth Estate; 240pp paperback; $27.99)

Wikipedia says that “friendly fire” occurs when there is “intent to do harm to the enemy which causes injury to one’s own side”. The title of this short story collection is therefore particularly apt, as Alaa Al Aswany’s stories confront the universal themes of corruption and ignoble human behavior, but happen also to be based on close observations of his own people, culture and home.

Alaa Al Aswany was born in Egypt in 1957, studied dentistry in America during the ’80s, and then returned to his home country to practise his trade. But the respectable life of a middle-class professional was just one side to a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence. At night, Alaa Al Aswany would frequent strange places and meet unusual characters, captivated by the fantastical and eccentric downtown Cairo nightlife that would eventually provide much of the substance for his writing.

The Isam Abd el-Ati Papers, the first (and longest) story in the collection, is based on a real life character encountered on his nocturnal jaunts — Triple Mahmoud (his parents liked it so much they named him Mahmoud Mahmoud Mahmoud).

In the story a young Isam (Mahmoud) openly derides and scorns his country and its culture. At first he is unlikable — arrogant and selfish — but sympathy grows as more is learned, and the final twist is sad indeed. The story is certainly a thrust at Egyptian society.

The tale landed Alaa Al Aswany in trouble with the government censors — the General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO) — and it was banned in Egypt for a decade.

The censors said the novella insulted Egypt, and that it could not be tolerated. They said it made fun of Egyptian heroes. Alaa Al Aswany argues in a lengthy preface to the collection that it, and all his stories, are just a work of imagination.

And really, that’s exactly what the stories are. Wonderful works of imagination, well written, and permeated with a sense of wry humour — a little bit of which you hope the censors of the world just might develop.

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