The Tent

Title: The Tent
Author: Miral al-Tahawy
Language: 4/5
Content: 4/5
Overall: 8/10

This novel reads like a fairy tale, or a dream. Time seems to play no part and images flow into each other seamlessly. 

This is a story told from the eyes of a Bedouin girl, Fatima, who floats between reality and dreams. Zahwa, her imaginary friend seems to be a counterpart to Fatima- living a parallel life. Fatima's life, as is typical of Bedouin girls, is spent amongst women. There is a depressed and hence absent mother, older sisters and a dominating and cruel grandmother. Her father, often absent, is like a distant, loving memory.

The novel is so beautifully written that the reader feels this incredible sense of suffocation whilst reading the book. It's as if we are in the story spiraling further from reality and into dreams with Fatima. The second overwhelming feeling is femininity. Something from the translator's notes stuck with me as I believe it is probably the single best description of this piece of literature. 

'There is no 'women's n' (nun al-niswa) in English, no feminine plural endings, no feminine nouns and adjectives, and it is hard to recreate the scent of woman that permeates the Arabic original of The Tent.'

Almost definitely not to the extent of the original, but the scent of woman permeates the translated version as well.

*The product artwork I use within this review is taken from Goodreads in order to identify the subject of the review. It is low enough in resolution such that it could not be used as counterfeit or pirated material