Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

This novel is by a Saudi author and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is banned in that country. The story is a retelling, largely in their own words, of three lives: a Bedouin, a eunuch, and an orphan—all out of place in Riyadh, the capital and largest city in that country. The book is an indictment of Saudi politics and society and spares no one. Each of the three individuals whose story is told in this book is physically maimed in some way and although there is more than enough bitterness and sadness in these stories, the author’s achievement is to never let it overwhelm the reader.… (more)

“Wolves of the Crescent Moon,” by Yousef Al – Mohaimeed provides insights into Saudi Arabian society that haven’t been filtered through a Western lens. A slim novel, it’s prose is distinctive and the story is fairly engaging. Banned in Saudi Arabia, it presents a critical view of Saudi society as it follows the lives of three disaffected citizens of Riyadh. Focusing on three characters, all physically disfigured, the story explores their attitudes and experiences of traveling through life in Saudi Arabia. Their physical disfigurements brand them as societal outcasts, and hints at the broken quality of life among the country’s masses. The story opens in a Riyadh bus station, where Turad, a bedouin and former highwayman is looking to escape the oppression of his current life as a servant. He recalls the story of a friend, Tawfiq, who was enslaved in the Sudan, brought to Saudi Arabian, castrated, and sold as a eunuch to a wealthy family. Finding a document detailing the life of an abandoned orphan, Nasir, left behind by a rushing passenger, Turad also conceives a story for the child, continually abused and abandoned.

Turad reminisces about his life in the desert, where he was a successful, and proud highway robber, before being captured and left to die. Attacked and disfigured, he manages to live, but abandons his home in shame to live in the city, where he feels constrained and humiliated by the small service jobs he undertakes. The theme of globalization weaves into the narrative as he must compete with Bengalis and Filipinos for jobs, and while the tensions between internal and external migrants to the city are not explored fully, the rural – urban tensions that exist are addressed briefly. Tawfiq’s story, featuring child abuse including rape, is graphic and explores the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy. Both characters face everyday humiliations and abuse, and deprived of their humanity, a virulent anger seethes throughout the novel. Turad imagines Nasir’s life beginning with a love story. A young, seemingly upper class woman falls in love with a taxi driver. The young lovers enjoy a clandestine relationship until tribal identities prove an obstacle and the baby is abandoned. Turad’s wild, vivid imagination sees Nasir abused in institutional care and adopted as a plaything by a rich family only to be thrown away. As the narratives unfold, and the characters are scarred, the toll of everyday living in Saudi Arabia is explored, and while at times brutal, Yousef Al – Mohaimeed work retains a raw, emotional quality.

“Wolves of the Crescent Moon” is reminiscent (though not quite the quality) of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man as society’s abandoned and forgotten chronicle their injustices and indignation. The repressed fury and powerlessness of the trio provides a sense of some of the tensions that may exist in Saudi Arabia. While many impressions of Saudi Arabia continue to be made through questions about Wahhabism, the royal family, oil, OBL, CNN’s sports center-esque coverage of the Hajj, OPEC, etc, looking at the contentions that exist among the people and their daily struggles points to the similarities that we may have with Saudi citizens as we struggle with life’s challenges and humiliations while seeking to transcend the confines of our lives. It also reminds us of how much we don’t know about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is a good reason to grab a book.

A Review excerpt from my (largely abandoned) blog:
http://poetsandpolicymakers.com/… (more)

This was a 'nearly' book for me. Nearly very good, nearly very clever, nearly very well written. Nearly, but not quite. The book is an examination of modern Saudi life and what its author believs has gone wrong with the country. The story begins in Riyadh bus station, as a man, homeless and poor, is trying to by a bus ticket out of the capital. He doesn't know where he wants to go, but knows that he is so tired of life in the capital that he must get out. As he wanders the bus station, considering his options, a stranger hands him a folder detailing the life of a young orphan boy. The story in the folder leads to the unfolding of three narratives: those of a bedouin theif, a eunuch slave and the orphan boy. Each story illustrates failings in Saudi society.
The blurb compares Youssuf al-Mohaimeed to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can promise you that the comparison is absolute rubbish. al-Mohaimeed's book does poke at attempting some magical realism (who is the stranger that just hands him the document?) it is half-hearted, and although the writing is fairly jaunty in places, it falls well short of any comic pretensions. The structure is interesting, with the three narratives beginning to weave round each other until they start to touch, but this was done a bit heavy-handedly, and all comes out in a big self-conscious rush at the end. I found the writing to be generally engaging, and read the book quickly. I did enjoy the read, but there was a nagging dissatisfaction at the end that the thing it had been attemptig to do (i.e. critiquing modern Saudi life) was never really done coherently. Consequently, the book became a collection of three engaging but unspectacular stories.… (more)