CHICAGO: Critically acclaimed novelist Sonallah Ibrahim’s “Warda” is an homage to the Arab political change-makers of the years between the 1950s and 1970s, an era that shaped a region and was concurrently shaped by wars, resistance, independence, and imperialism. Seen through the eyes of Rushdy, an Egyptian political activist turned journalist, and Warda, a young Omani fighter, Ibrahim presents the struggle of the people of the Dhofar region in Oman in their attempt to escape from the grip of impoverishment and colonialism.
Now brilliantly translated into English by Hosam Aboul-Ela, Ibrahim’s masterpiece was originally published in 2000. It is “a story of people opposing colonialism and proposing a radical vision as a replacement, only to find their dream crushed by a far less idealistic version of independence. In this sense, the story of Dhofar is the story of the young Sonallah Ibrahim in Nasser’s Egypt,” according to Aboul-Ela. Beginning in Cairo and moving around the Arab world, Rushdy and Warda’s fates are linked to one another when they meet at university, and then over 30 years later when he is given her diaries that span from the 1960s through the 1970s. He learns about her life and what happened to her when she became involved in guerilla warfare in Dhofar, dedicating her life to independence.
The lives of Ibrahim’s characters mirror his own as a political activist, prisoner, and journalist. His novel conveys the struggle for self-determination as waves of passion, resistance and power-hungry politicians sweep across the region.
Ibrahim’s in-depth examination of Omani society and the Arab world at large, its past and future, how it was shaped because of world politics and how its politics shaped the world, how it is alike and different from the Gulf region and Egyptian society, brings an insight to the history of resistance. His characters are the hopefuls of Nasser’s vision, those who opposed colonialism and who adapted themselves and their missions towards independence.
