Moonlight that power does not let in

Wolves of the Crescent Moon
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed
Trans. Anthony Calderbank
American University Press

Censorship of creative works, especially fiction, is alive and well in much of the non-Western world. That said, it is no surprise that Wolves of the Crescent Moon has been a threat to authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Yousef Al-Mohaimeed's native country. What a pity that this imaginative writer's novel cannot be read by the readers for whom it was intended. What a blessing that the translation into English is at least available for many of us, following the original publication of the Arabic text (Fikhakh al-ra'iha) in Beirut. Perhaps there is no better way to understand the zeitgeist of a given country than by examining the way it treats its artists.
What is so threatening about Al-Mohaimeed's novel?
The issue is hinted at on the first page. Turad, the main character, waits in a bus station in Riyadh, unable to determine where he should go next and as we later learnwhat he should do with the rest of his life. The narrator notes of him, "He had come utterly to loathe this city and everyone in it. He had spent the last two nights sleeping in the basement of an old mosque. For two whole days he had been roaming the streets, wandering into gardens and souks, and rummaging through the shops, one after the other. It was as if to reassure himself he wouldn't be missing anything in particular by leaving the city that he had lived in for years, and that he had sought refuge in as a destitute and defenseless young man."
The passage continues, "Nights he had learned to read and write, spelling out the words letter by letter. During the days he had worked like a dog in the scorching heat, first as a day laborer, then as a tea boy; as a security guard in a bank, and as a guard at the gate of a palace; and finally as a messenger in a ministry. 'To hell with this city and the people in it. They have stripped me of every ounce of dignity and decency. Are they Arabs or what?'"
We have read variations of this story from many cultures: the peasant, the man or woman from the country, the outsider (in this case a Bedouin) seeking fortune in the city, the archetypal (and virtually universal) tale of urbanization. Too often the story does not turn out well. The young woman is raped; the young man is exploitedthe idealism is dissipated, a life is ruined, turned into bitterness and gall. All rather predictable, you might say, though is nothing predictable in this novel.
Turad picks up a folder that someone has inadvertently left in the bus terminal, and its contents relate the story of another lost soul, who was abandoned as a baby and lost an eye to stray cats before he was rescued. And then there is Turad's close friend, Tawfiq, whose story is the most horrendous of the three. All three of these characters have been maimed: Turad lost an ear years ago and ever since has worn a shmagh in order to hide his deformity. Mutilation is, thus, a central metaphor in Al-Mohaimeed's novel, and it doesn't take long to realize that the writer uses it to comment on the treatment of undesirables in Saudi Arabiaworkers who, while indispensable to the country's economy, are treated as riff-raff, stripped of their human dignity.
The story weaves the lives of these three characters into an often surreal account of abuse, exploitation, and man's inhumanity toward the less successful, the unfortunate, who by pedigree are utterly lacking in privilege and education, and thus implies that the willingness to do hard work counts for nothing at all. Thus, Turad's own downtrodden lot: one insignificant position after another and further degradation by uncaring employers.
Tawfiq's situation is even worse. Sexually abused by other men, sold into slavery in Sudan and subsequently castrated, his story becomes the sorrow of the eunuchs. Immediately after his emasculation, he is told, "You'll find excellent work…. You'll be able to work in the palaces. You will know greatness and prosperity, and you'll be a rich man." Tawfiq's own observation: "But I never became rich, and I wasn't a man anymore."
The most damning incident, however, is the one that resulted in Turad losing an ear when he was still young, the result of burial in the sand. Along with another friend, he was tied up with ropes. The two were then buried up to their necks and left to die in the desert. And the perpetrators of this? Men on the hajj, on their way to Mecca. "'We don't want to stain our hands with their blood when it is our intention to perform the pilgrimage,'" Turad overhears one of the men on the caravan say to his companions.
The incident results in "the beginning of a life of humiliation." The narration shifts from his first-person account to the omniscient narrator: "They insulted his dignity, his fearlessness, and his manhood. He abandoned the desert altogether and left its pastures and plains that he loved, and the trees and caves that had sheltered him and loved him back. He went into the city, whose secrets and machinations he did not know, for he was used to seeing a clearly defined enemy in front of him with whom he could join in combat like a real man."
Turadwho narrates much of this very convoluted storyrepeatedly questions how Pakistani and Filipina workers in the Middle East can be treated better than the indigenous peoples born in the country. Does being an Arab count for nothing? Are the uneducated little more than fodder? Do they have no rights at all? Can it be a surprise that someone who has been treated so despicably (as have the other main characters) has no idea of what his destination should be when he enters a bus terminal?
Wolves of the Crescent Moon is an unflinching plea for equal treatment, for no bias against the often invisible workers of the world.
Charles R. Larson is Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C.