The Kindness of Enemies A Novel Leila Aboulela Books
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“An absorbing novel . . . reminds us of the complexity of the web woven by those threads of faith, nationality, politics and history.”—New York Times Book Review
“Aboulela has written a book for grown-ups... that speaks more forcefully than a thousand opinion pieces...she has done more than breathe life into legend.” —San Francisco Chronicle
From the first ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, Leila Aboulela, The Kindness of Enemies is a powerful historical journey across time and continents and a riveting epic of love, betrayal, and war. It’s 2010 and Natasha, a half-Russian, half-Sudanese professor of history, is researching the life of Imam Shamil, the nineteenth century Muslim leader who led the anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian War. When Natasha discovers her star student, Osama (Oz), is not only descended from the warrior but also possesses Shamil’s legendary sword, the Imam’s story comes vividly to life. But when Oz is suddenly arrested at his home one morning, Natasha realizes that everything she values stands in jeopardy. Told with Aboulela’s inimitable elegance, The Kindness of Enemies is both an engrossing story of a provocative period in history and an important examination of what it is to be a Muslim in a post-9/11 world.
“A rich, multilayered story, a whole syllabus of compelling topics. As a novelist, Aboulela moves confidently between dramatizing urgent, contemporary issues and providing her audience with sufficient background to follow these discussions about the changing meaning of jihad, the history of Sufism and the racial politics of the war on terror.”—Washington Post
“Riveting . . . [this novel] hums in hushed and meditative tones through prisoners of war in historic and contemporary fantasy rooted in reality.”—Los Angeles Times
The Kindness of Enemies A Novel Leila Aboulela Books
“The Kindness of Enemies”, a novel by Leila Aboulela, is actually 2 books in one, with more than 160 years separating the 2 story lines. The stories are connected only loosely (and inconsequentially) by the 2010 story-teller of Book 1 and her research interest in an enduring leader from the never-ending battle of resistance in the 1850s in the Caucasus Mountains in the small Asian country we know as Georgia. Book 1 is told in first person. Book 2 is narrated. There is a strong theme of praise for Islam throughout the book, with many key players being Muslim.Book 2 is a far better book. It is more interesting, better written, and far more engrossing -- from beginning to end. The characters are more fascinating than the modern day persons in Book 1, (which takes place in Scotland and The Sudan), especially the primary players. The first-person story-teller of Book 1 is, unfortunately, not very likable and suffers from over-self-indulgence, spending too much time in her head, and with serious identity confusion, whereas the 3 or 4 primary characters in Book 2 are each and collectively sympathetic, likable and almost regal.
How this writing, plotting, and literary dichotomy between the modern day and 1850’s stories occurred is a mystery. It’s almost as if the writing itself reflects a possible decline of elegance and sophistication implicit in modern society. But its divisive effect dimmed my appreciation for the author’s skill and imagination. A reader really needs Book 2 to endure the much less appealing story in Book 1, despite the unsuccessful attempt to insert a Muslim “terrorist” sub-plot at one point. Luckily the episodes in each book are relatively short, and so one is switched back and forth quickly between the stories, thus preserving an overall sense of interest in the whole.
The really good aspect of both stories is that each is populated by numerous characters of differing genetic and cultural backgrounds. Thus, their sociological and ethnic identities are either mixed or centered in specific cultural certainties and ethos. Russian, Chechen, and Sudanese cultural backgrounds are central. In Book 2, the story revolves around the then-led Russian Tsar Nicholas’ long battle to annex Georgia from the fiercely independent (and today we might say “backward”) Islamic Chechens from their mountainous villages and their indomitable leader Shamil. In Book 1, the main character Natasha Wilson (having changed her family name from its original Sudanese Hussein) fights for her own identity. She is ½ black Sudanese and ½ white Russian. In Book 2, Alexander, the son of Shamil, loses his fight to re-integrate himself back into Muslim Chechen society after 15 years as a not unwilling hostage growing up in St. Petersburg. There is no denouement for either story or the book as a single entity. The story just stops at the end, similar to many episodes throughout the book, with nothing to bring closure to events. The end of both stories is disappointing.
What struck me (as a parent and as a citizen of the world) is the primary statement made by the book about how, when children are made by parents who have moved widely in the world to find their mates, little attention is given to their ultimate identity when they grow up and just how they, as adults, will successfully form their own sense of belonging to wherever it is they settle. Thus, an unintended consequence of having children with mixed cultural backgrounds often imposes on those children stress, anxiety and identity confusion despite the positive aspect of an immensely rich cultural life, with the additional joys of multilingualism. In this book, some of the main characters who were held as hostages (as either children or adults) adopt the values and sensibilities of their captors, just as do those also who are not held hostage but rather make conscious, deliberate decisions about where to live. It seems a natural, if unintended, consequence of having multicultural children.
The best part of the book occurs when a hostage exchange is made by the Russians and Chechens. In a strong way, neither of the exchanged adults really wants to return to their former life.
All in all, the book as a whole is a 3.55, with Book 1 (modern day) at 2.40 and Book 2 (1850s Russia) at 4.75.
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The Kindness of Enemies A Novel Leila Aboulela Books Reviews
interesting story of historical fiction
The braided narrative between the past and present is seamlessly interconnected. Also, the theme of not being quite at home in any place is quite realistically developed.
I enjoy the author's writing style. This particular had an added element of historical fiction that I thoroughly enjoyed. However, I believe, the description was slightly misleading which lead to some of my disappointment. I was expecting something a little different. Nevertheless, overall, a good read that I would recommend.
This book will make you think about the way people's ideas about you and the groups you identify with will affect the way you think about yourself and others. The author accomplishes this through an exploration of the life of a modern Muslim woman, part Somali, who is quite acculturated to her life in Britain, but gets involved in an investigation of possible terrorists. Her story alternates with a narrative set in the past. There we follow a Chechen boy and a Georgian princess whose lives, identities, and received ideas are turned upside down by events in Russia and the Caucasus during the time of the Crimean War.
The author draws her characters and their surroundings so skillfully that they begin to come alive after just a sentence or two. After that, the characters expose their personalities bit by bit, but never become totally predictable. Like real people, they always seem to keep back a bit, perhaps because the author does not indulge herself, as many do, by following out every bathetic thread of their lives so as to satisfy her own fondness for her 'children.'
There are no villains here, just human beings trying to cope with the larger events that affect their lives.
Aboulela writes from the inside out and humanizes the monsters on both the sides of the war, humanization being a prerequisite for peace. Her prose captures the pain of a war that cannot end until brave and reasonable people realize the current conflict between East and West can be won only when one side unilaterally chooses to stop fighting. If anyone wants to understand better the depth and breadth of our current global conflagration, read The Kindness of Enemies.
Only toward the end of the book did I begin to see the parallels which I assume the author was drawing. Which is to say that they were not terribly vibrant to begin with. The story of Natasha leaves a lot to be desired up til the end. The story of Imam Shamil and his sons is much more valuable in terms of storytelling, while the story of Anna is incidental and not terribly germane to the novel, in my opinion. Probably more of a 2.5 stars book, but I’m interested in the region and the life of Shamil now, so any book that piques interest is valuable.
Natasha Hussein Wilson, a history professor in Scotland is a specialist in the 19th Century conquest of the Caucasus by Russia. Her mother is Russian but her father is Sudanese and Muslim. When one of her students is arrested under suspicion of being a radical Jihadist, she is also shadowed by her Muslim connection. The reader sees what it's like to live in the West as a Muslim-identified person, no matter how slight the connection may be. Add being mixed race and isolation intensifies.
Chapters about Sheik Shamil's story of resistance against Russian imperialism are interspersed with Natasha's personal struggle with her identity and her spirituality.
This novel provides insight into the experience of thoroughly Westernized Muslims in the post-9/11 world.
“The Kindness of Enemies”, a novel by Leila Aboulela, is actually 2 books in one, with more than 160 years separating the 2 story lines. The stories are connected only loosely (and inconsequentially) by the 2010 story-teller of Book 1 and her research interest in an enduring leader from the never-ending battle of resistance in the 1850s in the Caucasus Mountains in the small Asian country we know as Georgia. Book 1 is told in first person. Book 2 is narrated. There is a strong theme of praise for Islam throughout the book, with many key players being Muslim.
Book 2 is a far better book. It is more interesting, better written, and far more engrossing -- from beginning to end. The characters are more fascinating than the modern day persons in Book 1, (which takes place in Scotland and The Sudan), especially the primary players. The first-person story-teller of Book 1 is, unfortunately, not very likable and suffers from over-self-indulgence, spending too much time in her head, and with serious identity confusion, whereas the 3 or 4 primary characters in Book 2 are each and collectively sympathetic, likable and almost regal.
How this writing, plotting, and literary dichotomy between the modern day and 1850’s stories occurred is a mystery. It’s almost as if the writing itself reflects a possible decline of elegance and sophistication implicit in modern society. But its divisive effect dimmed my appreciation for the author’s skill and imagination. A reader really needs Book 2 to endure the much less appealing story in Book 1, despite the unsuccessful attempt to insert a Muslim “terrorist” sub-plot at one point. Luckily the episodes in each book are relatively short, and so one is switched back and forth quickly between the stories, thus preserving an overall sense of interest in the whole.
The really good aspect of both stories is that each is populated by numerous characters of differing genetic and cultural backgrounds. Thus, their sociological and ethnic identities are either mixed or centered in specific cultural certainties and ethos. Russian, Chechen, and Sudanese cultural backgrounds are central. In Book 2, the story revolves around the then-led Russian Tsar Nicholas’ long battle to annex Georgia from the fiercely independent (and today we might say “backward”) Islamic Chechens from their mountainous villages and their indomitable leader Shamil. In Book 1, the main character Natasha Wilson (having changed her family name from its original Sudanese Hussein) fights for her own identity. She is ½ black Sudanese and ½ white Russian. In Book 2, Alexander, the son of Shamil, loses his fight to re-integrate himself back into Muslim Chechen society after 15 years as a not unwilling hostage growing up in St. Petersburg. There is no denouement for either story or the book as a single entity. The story just stops at the end, similar to many episodes throughout the book, with nothing to bring closure to events. The end of both stories is disappointing.
What struck me (as a parent and as a citizen of the world) is the primary statement made by the book about how, when children are made by parents who have moved widely in the world to find their mates, little attention is given to their ultimate identity when they grow up and just how they, as adults, will successfully form their own sense of belonging to wherever it is they settle. Thus, an unintended consequence of having children with mixed cultural backgrounds often imposes on those children stress, anxiety and identity confusion despite the positive aspect of an immensely rich cultural life, with the additional joys of multilingualism. In this book, some of the main characters who were held as hostages (as either children or adults) adopt the values and sensibilities of their captors, just as do those also who are not held hostage but rather make conscious, deliberate decisions about where to live. It seems a natural, if unintended, consequence of having multicultural children.
The best part of the book occurs when a hostage exchange is made by the Russians and Chechens. In a strong way, neither of the exchanged adults really wants to return to their former life.
All in all, the book as a whole is a 3.55, with Book 1 (modern day) at 2.40 and Book 2 (1850s Russia) at 4.75.
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