Hisham Matar's "Anatomy of a Disappearance" (2011)

International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

Preamble

The States Parties to this Convention ... 

Affirming the right of any victim to know the truth about the circumstances of an enforced disappearance and the fate of the disappeared person, and the right to freedom to seek, receive and impart information to this end,

Have agreed on the following articles:

Part I

Article 1

1. No one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance.

***

In early October of 2011, I was given the assignment of linking my previous discipline (literature) to my masters studies in human rights, with a particular focus on the conflict in Libya. This was the way in which I first discovered Hisham Matar; a Libyan author, writing in English and based in London. In a fascinating interview, Matar discussed writing about life under totalitarianism: 

I do think people love differently under this situation [...] I’m trying to make it a subject worth concentrating on, that one of the things that happens under this situation is people are not [allowed] to give the private moment its worth. I feel that, since the fall of the Libyan dictatorship, something radical has changed. It has influenced the way that I deal with my loved ones, the way that I deal with myself, with my body.  


I found this statement to be very profound and intriuging, but it was only recently that I was actually able to read Matar's second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance. 


It is beautiful and tender book, dealing with the very human side of disappearances that the language of the International Convention can only hint at. Anatomy of a Disappearance details a young man named Nuri's attempts to deal with the disappearance of his father, as well as his infatuation with his father's new wife, Mona. Many reviews have underlined the fact that Matar's own father was was disappeared in Cairo in 1990 by Gaddafi's agents; as such, the novel can be regarded as semi-autobiographical and arguably becomes all the more resonant for being so. However, I wish to focus on the skill with with Matar expresses the longing and lack of closure which international law cannot fully underline. The novels asks a poignant question: how one is to rebuild a life so affected by absence? 


Anatomy of a Disappearance, as the title might suggest, is replete with evocative phrasings on physicality; from the opening sentence the reader is struck by how even the most minute of Nuri and Mona's movements are affected by his missing father: "There are times when my father's absence is as heavy as a child sitting on my chest." Matar masterfully describes the ways in which the human body responds to sadness and shock: "Suddenly her beauty would look sorrowful: a fruit bruising in front of my eyes"; "Her figure looked as stiff and precarious as a reed in water"; "Her eyelids hard as shells"... It is this thread of intimacy which I feel pulls the reader forward through Nuri's story. Matar writes with so much tenderness, making for a deeply moving read. Anatomy of a Disappearance resonates with the reader long after turning the last page. Detailing the very human consequences of human rights abuses, Hisham Matar's compelling novel is highly recommended.

Introduction: The Pen is Mightier Than...

This little corner of the internet, more so than my escapism-oriented earlier blog, serves to unite my two chief interests: human rights, and literature.

"Interests" feels like too weak a word to describe them, really. Since I can remember, books have been a guiding force in my life, leading me to undertake an undergraduate degree in English Literature and graduate in the summer of 2011. Working to better human rights has been a fixture in my life since middle school, and as of September became the focus of my studies as I undertook my Masters degree.

In my cover letter when applying for this course, I sought to underscore the link between these two fields. Since September, my belief in this important (and increasingly acknowledged) link has been consolidated.

I recently received an unusual gift, pictured above. A friend had been traveling around Bosnia-Herzegovina and brought me back this pen. Sarajevo bullets have been turned into souvenirs for tourists: slightly troubling for some. The recent suspension of the war crimes trial of Ratko Mladic, accused of orchestrating the siege of the city, arguably makes it more so.

In spite of this sadness, I think there's more to this pen than simply recollections of mass atrocity. While memories may be a key component, to me this little metal object is also about recovery and reappropriation. Someone has picked up the bullets meant to take away life, and turned them into a biro. I feel like there's a strong reassertion of presence and agency in this little pen, and while it may seem a little macabre to be making notes with the remnants of a mass crime, I think there's also something commemorative in that act.

This space will serve for me to draw out links between the books I'm reading and the rights discourse I engage with on a daily basis. As well as this, I hope to present some books in translation; as English PEN have underlined, less than 3% of the UK's annual publishing output is made up of translated works. There's something very skewed about that, and I hope to be able to use this space to address it.

Here's hoping this blog will bring out what the pen is mightier than.