Granada

Wir befinden uns am Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts, das muslimische Granada wird von den kastilischen Truppen erobert. Moscheen werden in Kirchen umgewandelt, Arabisch wird verboten, Badehäuser werden geschlossen, Bücher werden verbrannt. Der Buchbinder Abu Jaffar, einer der Protagonisten des Buches, ist verzweifelt. Wie wird die Zukunft seiner Familie aussehen? Sollen sie nach Nordafrika auswandern? In den Widerstand gehen?

In dem spannend geschriebenen Roman verfolgt Radwa Ashour die Geschichte der Familie von Abu Jaffar, seinen Enkeln, seinen Angestellten, und was ihnen in dieser Zeit widerfährt. Sie schildert die verschiedenen Optionen, die sie haben, und die verschiedenen Wahlen, die die einzelnen Mitglieder treffen. Auf eindrückliche Weise beschreibt sie den Verlust von Identität und von Besitz, den Verlust der eigenen Lebensweise, die die muslimischen Einwohner:innen Granadas nach der Eroberung durch das kastilische Reich erfahren haben. Und wie die Inquisition auch unter den konvertierten Muslimen, die unter dem Generalverdacht der Häresie standen, wütete. Sehr lesenswert! cn

The novel follows the family of Abu Jaafar the bookbinder – his wife, widowed daughter-in-law, her two children, and his two apprentices – as they witness Christopher Columbus and his entourage in a triumphant parade featuring exotic plants, animals, and human captives from the New World. Embedded in the narrative is the preparation for the marriage of Saad, one of the apprentices, and Saleema, Abu Jaafar's granddaughter – which is elegantly revealed in a number of parallel scenes. As the new rulers of Granada confiscate books and officials burn the collected volumes, Abu Jaafar quietly moves his rich library out of town. Persecuted Muslims fight to form an independent government, but increasing economic and cultural pressures on the Arabs of Spain and Christian rulers culminate in forcing Christian conversions and Muslim uprisings.

Radwa Ashour's sweeping trilogy – including the novels Granada, Maryama and The Departure – is set over one hundred years against the backdrop of the great historical events of sixteenth-century Europe, and tells the story of those who remained in Andalusia. It narrates a community's effort to comprehend what has happened to them, of their valiant efforts to resist the destruction of their identity.

Radwa Ashour (1946-2014) was a highly acclaimed Egyptian writer and scholar. She is the author of more than fifteen works of fiction, memoir, and criticism, including Granada (AUC Press, 2008) and The Woman from Tantoura (AUC Press, 2014), and was a recipient of the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature and the prestigious Owais Prize for Fiction.

Kay Heikkinen is a translator and academic, and was presviously Ibn Rushd Lecturer in Arabic at the University of Chicago. Among other books, she has translated Naguib Mahfouz's In the Time of Love, Radwa Ashour's The Woman From Tantoura, and Huzama Habayeb's Velvet, for which she was awarded the 2020 Saif-Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation