Son elsewhere
Fragment memoirs
By Elamin Abdelmahmoud
268 pages. $ 17. Ballantine Books.
As a child of immigrants to Kingston, one of Canada’s whitest cities, Elamin Abdel Mahmood quickly learned that he was black. At first, this was news for him. He spent the first 12 years of his life in Sudan identifying him as an Arab — when he thought of his identity.
“In my corner of Kingston, the only place I saw blackness was in the world of hip-hop,” said Abdel Mahmood, “the son of another place,” his collection of buoyant essays, or he “dismembered.” I wrote in what I call “Memoirs of.” However, growing up in a conservative Sudanese family, he was completely confused by Cisco’s “Thong Song” and Ja Rule’s music video. He paid close attention to how the Kingstonians around him were speaking. “I listened to rock radio stations because 1) they talk like people I’m trying to imitate, and 2) there’s no Ja Rule at all.”
This book is full of confessions like this: interesting and candid, fascinated by the story of Abdel Mahmood, where almost every reader (even the most enthusiastic Ja Rule fan) tries to understand who he is. Delivered with a generous spirit. In Sudan, his identity was given. His father owned a publishing company in the capital Khartoum, and his family had social status until the authoritarian government closed it. They lived in the ears of four mosques, and their prayer calls made up their daily rhythm.
Immigrants have destabilized all of that. “When we arrived, our parents wanted to admit that we were in Canada and have a delicate balance between limiting actual exposure to Canadians,” he wrote. Living in a new country has brought not only discomfort but also potential. Abdelmahmoud started writing online fan fiction about professional wrestling. It “allowed me to write, write, write until I understood.” The televised wrestling festival provided him with an excuse to hang out with his new friends in real life. crack Of the bodies on the screen, even I, it was as if no one in the room had to think about the fact that I was an immigrant. “
BuzzFeed writer Abdelmahmoud knows his cultural references, but wears them lightly. A quote from Roland Baltes slips into thoughts about the crash effortlessly, and the television show “The OC” Abdelmar Mood turns out to be suspicious anti-terrorism intelligence by then-President Bill Clinton. Recalling the summer night of 1998 when it was swung around and bombed, Khartoum’s pharmaceutical factory is reducing the supply of Sudanese malaria remedies. Even Frantz Fanon would find it a little crazy. “
Part of what Abdel Mahmood does in this book is to create space not only for joy and discovery, but also for suffering and ambivalence. He interweaves some thoughts on the “season of migration to the north” by Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, published in 1966 and a touchstone of Arabic literature. This novel tells how colonization creates a sense of moving between different worlds. Salih eventually became a fetus, but flattened and “became a peculiar image of one of Africa’s leading writers,” writes Abdelmahmoud. “What to do celebrateHowever, at the celebration, it was very ironic that it was reduced to an easy-to-understand identity that was removed from that scope. “
However, the scope may also present challenges. If the tether is too tight, you may feel stuffy and you may get stuck without the tether. Abdelmahmoud creates an ostinato of music. This is a repetitive motif that acts like a “guardrail for an emotional experience during every measurement of a song”.In Khartoum, his Ostinato Adhan, Or a Muslim prayer call. In Canada, like this book, his unlikely Ostinato is the 401 Highway, and when he arrived at Pearson Airport in Toronto, “when my emotions were raw and confusing,” he was Kingston. It was a huge road that I brought to Canada. , A few hours east.
401 was his “first friend”. He remembers being amazed at its size and speed, the asphalt ribbon in the landscape, and the “geography of elegance and chaos.” 401 visited Niagara Falls and took him to see his first play. The 401 allowed him to move around the world, in other words, sneak behind his parents. While living at home in college, he began dating a woman named Emily, despite the dissatisfaction of his parents. (She wasn’t completely clear by Abdel Mahmood whether she was white or not Muslim, and whether they objected.) “I thanked the highway.” Hundred miles Distant. “I went home in time for dinner, and my parents never doubted anything.”
Abdelmahmoud and Emily finally got married. Instead of attending her wedding, his father refused to meet her. This sounds cruel — and probably unforgivable for some in the Abdel Mahmood position. But part of the growth is a deeper understanding of where your parents are coming from, with all the restrictions. Abdel Mahmood begins to realize that the limits imposed on him are not the sum of who his parents are, even if his young self naturally feels that way.
Their reconciliation took place in Wendy’s off 401 when his father finally apologized completely two years later. The highway is too big to contain just one metaphor. It’s like “another place” in the title of this vibrant book. Neither here nor there, it’s a “fragile compromise” where these two places meet.
