Myra here.
Every Saturday we hope to share with you our thoughts on reading and books. We thought that it would be good practice to reflect on our reading lives and our thoughts about reading in general. While on occasion, we would feature a few books in keeping with this, there would be a few posts where we will just write about our thoughts on read-alouds, libraries, reading journals, upcoming literary conferences, books that we are excited about, and just book love miscellany in general.
Rose’s Diaries
Written by Reem Al Kamali Translated by Chip Rossetti Published by: ELF Publishing (2024) ISBN: 978-9948-765-74-5. Bought a copy of the book. Layout of book quotes done via Canva. Book photos edited using a mobile app.
Initially, I read this novel so that I can feature it as part of my invited #UAEReads Guest Curation over at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative (GLLI – see my round up post here). I discovered it serendipitously while browsing through the display of books by Magrudy’s during this year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. When I read the blurb, saw that it was published by Emirates Literature Foundation (ELF – which publishes quite a lot of amazing titles), and noted that it was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic, I knew I had to get a copy for myself and finally read my first full-length novel from the country we call home for the past (going on) five years now.
As the title indicates, the entire story is written in a diary/journal format (which reminded me of our erstwhile reading theme back when we were just starting GatheringBooks in 2010 called Private! Keep Out! A Diary Special). Rose or Rūza has been dubbed “The Queen of Literature” by her classmates and teachers because of her prowess in reading and writing. However, she was not allowed to do further studies in a university in Damascus for her tertiary education because it is expected that she will be married to a man of her family’s choosing.
While initially it may appear like any other story about female oppression in the Middle East – it evolved into something more complex as it deconstructs history, questions written perspectives of dominant colonial powers – while at the same time grappling with the intimate and largely personal attempts at self-expression, identity, and owning one’s voice.
As Rūza attempts to make sense of her restricted, albeit very sheltered and highly privileged, space, she begins to recognize the erasure of female voices in her own family ancestry: “where were my grandmothers?” – and finding her own place in a landscape where even writing in her diary is perceived as a revolutionary, subversive act by her traditional-minded uncle who now serves as her guardian.
The writing of Reem Al Kamali is, for lack of a better word, grandiloquent. She is expansive, she embellishes, oftentimes there are stories-within-stories in her diary entries, and flowery – minus all the negative connotation that comes with the description. Al Kamali manages to express her incisive observations about the workings of Rūza’s inner and outer worlds in ornate and complicated turns of phrase, that is also very Arabic in spirit and disposition. Rūza’s voice gains in strength and power every time she puts words on paper. She is her own worst critic as you can see in the quote below.
Then there is the struggle with the various forms of linguistic expression: should it be classical Arabic or the nabati language that adheres to the rules of the spoken – rather than written – word, that Rūza uses to express her thoughts? It reminded me of this Poetry Friday post where we juxtaposed classical and nabati poetry as written/spoken by Emirati royals – as part of our #UAEReads guest curation at GLLI.
I love that the entire story is not plot-driven, but rather directed solely by the voice of a female Emirati who wishes to emancipate herself from the confines of societal expectations – even as she remained unobservant of her own privileged upbringing. Rūza ultimately ended up seemingly-oblivious to class issues, maybe because this has always been taken for granted as a given – even at the present moment – to truly examine this in minute detail: the hierarchization of power and the imposed silences of those who hold absolutely neither positions of power nor privilege.
In other words, Rūza does exercise power, even while she decried being dispossessed of it. Her mind is a space where she can be free, and her writing her very own seditious act: unlike for other people whose ‘silences’ are neither ‘acceptance’ nor ‘protest,’ but a means to survival.
This will definitely be ranked as one of my favourite reads this year. I hope to read even more Arabic literature – especially those coming from the Emirates as I read my way home this year: #ReadYourWayHome2024.
#ReadYourWayHome2024 Update: 21 out of 100
Gathering Books 
A beautiful review and I love the way you’ve displayed the quotes. That dilemma of the ancestral tree and finding out about the lives of women, it is as if we were designed to disappear. That image of the leaf not the branch is so strong 🍃
I just finished Undiscovered by Peruvian author Gabriela Wiener and she too looks for something about her great great grandmother Maria; she says some like, “he left us a book, she left us the gift of imagination”
I find that so true, even when we find little details, it’s as if those maternal ancestors created images in our minds if we sit with them a while.
Let them not be forgotten.
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