People in the west do not often hear about Yemen, one of the more remote countries in the Middle East. A nation of roughly 24 million on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, whose capital is Sana’a, this country south of Saudi Arabia can appear mysterious to occidental eyes.
Thanks to the writings of Ottawa-based author Qais Ghanem, however, readers can now travel to the land of Sheba, where they will discover a complex country filled with passion and corruption, altruism and hypocrisy, incredible kindness and brutal violence.
A retired neurologist, Ghanem has published three novels based in his native Yemen, as well as the non-fiction book My Arab Spring My Canada, which looks at the role of Arabs in Canada, as well as the poetry collection From Left to Right that contains English and Arabic verse.
His latest book is the novel Forbidden Love in the Land of Sheba, which describes the dangerous romance between Farook, a Yemeni doctor who trained in Scotland, and his married cousin Hana. Amidst this taboo relationship, a fascinating story develops which paints a picture of Yemen that is both sickening and inspirational.
On the ugly side, the reader is shown a portrait filled with government corruption, the unsettling reality of drug dealing in a Muslim nation, violence towards women and gun smuggling. This brutal side, however, is tempered with kindhearted characters such as the progressive Farook, who symbolises the potential bright future of his country.
This highly complex picture raises the question of whether the novel paints an accurate portrait of Yemen.
“[A] novelist creates fiction, but if this fiction is not credible, she/he will have no readers,” replies Ghanem in email to Apartment613. “[T]he fiction (in the book) is invariably mixed with real life events and characters. . . . Drugs, guns and violence against women is actually true about Yemen, but swept under the carpet!”
Qais Ghanem
Although written in English, Ghanem, hopes to translate the book into Arabic, especially given that the novel is dedicated To The millions of Yemenis who struggle for dignity.
“I have always spoken out for the oppressed against the oppressor,” says Ghanem, when asked if he is seeking to help foster social change in Yemen with his work. “[M]y cousin in Dubai has been negotiating with a Lebanese publisher, the translation of the book, which will be banned in Yemen, but will sell like hot cakes in OTHER Arab countries!”
Interested readers will likely find this novel to be one of the more original and interesting stories to come out of the National Capital Region in recent years.
That being said, if I had to make one critique, it would be the dialogue. More specifically, at certain points, I felt that the dialgue was not a natural conversation between characters, but rather a plot mechanism to express specific points.
When I raised this with Ghanem, however, he noted that Arabic speakers can be a lot more verbose than English-speaking people. Given that the characters are often speaking in Arabic, but that the text is translated into English, the cadence can sometimes feel strange to Anglo-Saxon ears.
“Arabs use long winded and extra polite language to communicate,” says Ghanem, who has also written for such publications as the Yemen Times and The Huffington Post. “For them it is natural, and getting to the point quickly without that is considered rude.”
Forbidden Love in the Land of Sheba was released this past March and is worth well the read. If you have never picked up one of Ghanem’s books before, however, then let me recommend his previous novel Two Boys from Aden College as a start.
Released in 2012, this excellent work tells the story of two bright boys named Ahman and Hasan, who are among the top students in Aden College in South Yemen. Following their graduation in 1967, Ahmad travels to Edinburgh to study medicine, while Hasan goes to law school in London.
Once close friends, they start to drift apart and follow very different paths in the ensuing decades, a turbulent period in Yemeni history that includes the unification of the north and south in 1990, as well as various armed conflicts.
Following their respective studies in the United Kingdom, Hasan returns to South Yemen – then a communist country – where he becomes the Minister of Justice. He also ends up marrying Ahmad’s sister Salma. Amidst the government’s corrupt rule, Hasan becomes involved in shady dealings, and eagerly takes advantage of the benefits that he can acquire through the state’s oppressive force.
Ahmad, on the other hand, becomes a well regarded physician, but after witnessing the brutality of the communist government flees the south. The two former friends are brought back together in Sana’a, then in northern Yemen, where the shooting of a burglar by a rich man leads to a clash between the two men. Ahmad’s forensic skills lead him to accuse one of the president’s in-laws of murder, while Hasan decides to protect the rich sheikh and jail his previous friend.
Two Boys from Aden College is a wonderful book filled with drama, politics, passion, history and love. Of the two books by Ghanem that I read it is my favourite.
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