Unrelenting and unforgiving is the Arab experience. From wet womb to war-torn, Arab children are born into cultural fault lines and pre-decided moralities, steered into politics before they are fully weaned. It is a first touch, one could say, with belonging; children urged to grapple with identity before Arabic has fully healed in their mouths. In ‘This Arab Life: A Generation’s Journey into Silence’ (2022), Amal Ghandour presents a solitary vision—sacred in its documentation of the past and its fragmentary exploration of the Arab self, informed by a past unseen and an experience unforgotten. This is a memento and a memoir, both; it is a recollection of Ghandour’s experiences as a young Arab in the folds of turmoil and silence, punctuated with whimsical remembrances of a Amman and Beirut that, to many, no longer exist. Ghandour transports her reader into memory and history, expertly marrying the two to deliver an unblemished, if not raw, understanding of Arab life. Between her vignetted storytelling of the 1970s, and her witty delivery of modern-day disillusionment, Ghandour is able to unpack the complexities that define the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and her…
REVIEW: How ‘This Arab Life’ Speaks to the Liberation of the Arab Self and Its Inherent Politicism
February 24, 2023
