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The Confines of the Shadow, by Alessandro Spina
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The Confines of the Shadow is a sequence of novels and short stories that map the transformation of the Libyan city of Benghazi from a sleepy Ottoman backwater in the 1910s to the second capital of an oil-rich kingdom in the 1960s. Employing a cosmopolitan array of characters, ranging from Ottoman functionaries, to Sanussi aristocrats and Italian officers, Spina chronicles Italy's colonial experience from the euphoria of conquest - giving us a front row seat to the rise and subsequent fall of Fascism in the aftermath of World War II - to the country's independence in the 1950s. Spina continues his narrative with the discovery of Libya's vast oil and gas reserves, which triggered the tumultuous changes that led to Muammar Gaddafi's forty-two year dictatorship.
Distinguishing themselves by their intimate understanding of East and West, the novels that comprise The Confines of the Shadow are among the most significant achievements of 20th century fiction and stand unchallenged as the only multi-generational epic about the European experience in North Africa. This is the first instalment of a three-volume translation, and it includes The Young Maronite, The Marriage of Omar and The Nocturnal Visitor, which are set between 1912 and 1927.
- Sales Rank: #960247 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-06-05
- Released on: 2015-06-05
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author
Alessandro Spina was the nom de plume of Basili Shafik Khouzam. Born into a family of Syrian Maronites in Benghazi in 1927, Khouzam was educated in Italian schools and attended university in Milan. Returning to Libya in 1954 to help manage his father's textile factory, Khouzam remained in the country until 1979, when the factory was nationalized by Gaddafi, at which point he retired to his country estate in Franciacorta, where he died in 2013. The Confines of the Shadow (Morcelliana) was awarded the Bagutta Prize, Italy's highest literary accolade, in 2007. Andre Naffis-Sahely's poetry was featured in The Best British Poetry 2014 and the Oxford Poets Anthology 2013. His translations include The Physiology of the Employee by Honore de Balzac (Wakefield Press, 2014), Money by Emile Zola (Penguin Classics, 2015) and The Selected Poems of Abdellatif Laabi (Carcanet Press, 2015).
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Buy it Because: You want to understand European colonialism in a deeper context or because you love beautiful, witty writing
By Jack Kruse
Buy it Because: You want to understand European colonialism in a deeper context or because you love beautiful, witty writing in historical fiction.
I came across this book through a post on the Arabist's excellent blog--it was entitled A Libyan Novel You Should Read. The author of the post--Ursula Lindsey--wrote such a great opening hook to describe the books' author that I've included it here:
"Alessandro Spina was a Syrian Maronite who grew up in Ben Ghazi, was educated and wrote in Italian, and over the course of 40 years penned an extraordinary cycle of novels about the bloody establishment, brief flourishing and troubled aftermath of the Italian colony in Libya."
So a novel by a Catholic Syrian that grew up in Libya, was educated in Italy and wrote in Italian and his work has only recently been translated into English...awesome.
Lindsey also writes a very thorough and lengthy article on Spina in "The Nation": "A Stage Across the Sea: An unjustly-neglected Libyan novelist captured the twisted logic of colonialism, past and present."
Confines of the Shadow is the first of a three volume collection that texturizes the history of Libya. The second two volumes have yet to be translated so you will have to wait for the exciting conclusion. The book's translator, Naffis-Sahely, does a really beautiful job with an introduction that captures the labor of love he completed to bring this collection to the Anglophone readers (you can read the intro through google books). Naffis-Sahely also has a great blog/website that is a testament to his talent and breadth of scholarship. Prior to his superb translation (and really re-working/updating of the book), this gem had been largely forgotten.
Now that Spina's work is once again being read--this tome should easily ascend to the top of the reading list for any budding middle east/maghreb/european history scholar/foreign area officer/foreign service officer (hopefully I caught enough categories there).
Perhaps the most incredible part of Confines is its relevance today. Take for instance the comments by one Italian soldier concerning Italy foray into Libya:
"Just as a language is only useful in the area in which it is spoken, and is pointless outside of it, so it goes with Europe’s liberal moral values, which don’t extend anywhere south of the Mediterranean. As soon as one reaches the other coastline, one is ordered to do the exact opposite prescribed by God’s commandments: kill, steal, blaspheme … Once the Turkish garrison was defeated and a few key locations on the coast were occupied, we found a vast, obscure country stretching out before us, into which we were afraid to venture. Thus, we cloistered ourselves in the cities while waiting for daylight. Instead, the night is getting deeper, darker, deadlier and teeming with demons."
This is a novel that should have been mandatory reading for all western countries before we even thought about getting involved in the Qaddafi overthrow. And while, Spina's collection did win literary recognition during its time, his keen analysis into the Italian ethos likely did him no favors in winning widespread popularity:
"Italy’s obsession with catching up with Europe’s great powers is impeding its culture from recognising the legitimacy of other civilisations. We employ reason merely as an instrument in our attempt to imitate a superior model. We disdain civilisations to the south of us; in fact, it’s as if they embodied exactly what we wanted to escape. We’re a backward country that always keeps its eyes on the other European capitals: Vienna, Paris or London. If Venice had led the Italian unification effort, things might have turned out otherwise, but instead it was led by Piedmont, a lowly vassal of France, and we are the victims of those provincial beginnings. Italian culture seems to atrophy part of our organs. It’s no use trying to educate oneself, or to read books written elsewhere; whatever we do, a congenital mediocrity clings to us like a bad smell."
The genius of these stories is that much of what Spina writes transcends the particularity of the Italian colonial experience in the specific country of Libya:
"Generosity cannot overcome our fundamental problem: is our presence here legitimate? What right do we have to interfere in their destinies? Did anyone ask us to bring order to their world?" (location 3268)
On my part this is not meant as a commentary on past US/Western involvement in the middle east and north africa, however, these are important questions that should at least be considered and publicly debated within governments and wider society prior to intervention/invasion somewhere. Finally, Spina displays his gift for capturing what it is to be a foreigner in another country as he notes that presence and weapons will never confer acceptance.
"To be a foreigner is a magical condition: this land will never belong to me, no matter how many cannons and rifles I bring here; weapons will only protect me, and I don’t know how long that will last. Alas, you can’t put down roots with cannons." (location 3432)
Finally, I owe it to my former life as an English major, to state that this collection is ripe for commentary and analysis on the nature of 'shadows.' Spina comments that "The native is a living shadow" (location 3457) and he probably uses the word shadow a few hundred times. A properly analysis would delve into:
why/is this true?
Who is the sun causing the shadow?
what are the extremes of the shadows (i.e., when are they longest/shortest)?
How does a character's subjugation to a shadow steal away their humanity?
This is a book I will return to and which anyone traveling to/working in/being station to Libya should read...several times. I look forward to the translation of the following two volumes in the coming years.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A beautifully written book, which will benefit from a second reading
By Sally Akins
Disclosure: I was send a copy of ‘The Confines of the Shadow’ for review purposes, but the opinions in this post are my own and unbiased.
‘The Confines of the Shadow’* by Alessandro Spina is a collection of novels and short stories. They follow the transformation of Benghazi from a sleepy backwater in the 1910s to the second capital of an oil-rich kingdom in the 1950s. This is the first of a three volume translation of the novels by Andre Naffis-Sahely. It is a piece of literature very much unlike any other that I’ve read so far in 2015. Having just finished reading the book, I feel that it warrants a bit more explanation than I normally put into my book reviews.
Alessandro Spina is the nom de plume of Basili Shafik Khouzam, who was born into a family of Syrian Maronites in Benghazi in 1927. ‘The Confines of the Shadow’ is set in Libya, starting in 1912 at the time of the Italian invasion of the country. It is the only multi-generational account of this period of history, and was awarded the Bagutta prize (Italy’s highest literary prize).
This first volume includes ‘The Young Maronite’, ‘The Marriage of Omar’ and ‘The Nocturnal Visitor’. It covers the period up until 1927, when Italy and the Libyan rebels were engaged in a brutal war. The later novels in the collection cover the period through the rise of Italian Fascism and the Second World War, up to Libya’s independence in the 1950s. This is a period of history and a culture that I don’t know much about. While that meant that I came to the book without any pre-conceived opinions, I also didn’t have much understanding of the setting.
Spina’s work is full of encounters between pairs of people: husbands and wives, masters and servants, occupiers and Libyans. However these pairings occur, they almost inevitably seem to lead to melodrama and tragedy. The setting for these novels allows Spina to call on a wide range of characters. These include Italian officers, Ottoman functionaries, a 12 year old child bride and her teenage lover. The contrast between these characters and the interaction between the different cultures make for very interesting reading.
I’ve always found it difficult to critique a translated novel because obviously you are reading the translator’s words rather than those of the author himself. Andre Naffis-Sahely has previously translated works by Zola and Balzac, and has also had his own poetry published. In the introduction to ‘The Confines of the Shadow’, he explains that Spina died shortly before work began on this translation. This means that he could not be consulted on some of the more difficult passages in the book. But given the beautifully lyrical way that some of the passages in this book read, I think it is safe to say that Spina’s work is in safe hands.
I know that ‘The Confines of the Shadow’ is a beautifully written book, and the historical background and cultural setting is incredibly interesting. I enjoyed reading it, but I think it’s a book that will benefit greatly from a second reading, and that I’ll appreciate it more when I do so.
I’m sure that I’ll be returning to ‘The Confines of the Shadow’ in the future, but it’s not a book that I love, yet – 8/10
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