Rocky | тнє ѕυℓтαη'ѕ ѕєαℓ

Translated by Khaled Rajeh

James Hennessey, Iowa, 1991. Source: artsy.net

Do any of you know that there is a missing flag on the IMU bridge? I am only a traveler here, but I think it’s only right that I point this out. After all, the presence of a flagpole suggests the non-existent flag was once intended to exist there. This will cause us all some puzzlement we can do without. Imagine the scenario: pedestrians cluster on the bridge, perplexed, unable to move toward their destination or retrace their steps, each of them doing what I’m doing, stopping to investigate the disappearance of the flag. Maybe they are lucky enough to see that the matter does not merit too much attention, being only a flag, no more than a symbol of the international diversity among students at the University of Iowa. But that is not enough for me. I have nothing to rush me to the other side of the bridge. My most valuable resource here is time and I delight in squandering it on things no one would pay any mind to. I am the only one, then, who will take on the case of this poor flag. But before I take any steps that might put me in an awkward situation, I imagine a conversation between myself and one of the administrators summoned upon my request.

Tam Hussein reviews All the Battles, Maan Abu Taleb’s remarkable debut in Robin Moger’s translation, published by Hoopoe Fiction earlier this year

Source: mearsonlineauctions.com

There are things All the Battles by Maan Abu Taleb is not. It is not a cliched story based on a Rocky film. It is not an Arab version of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club in which the protagonist discovers fighting in order to feel “alive”. Whilst Abu Taleb’s first novel is ostensibly about boxing, it is really a meditation on masculinity in the Arab world today.

Had All The Battles been about boxing, it would have been an implausible story. No practitioner of the sweet science, however good, can turn professional in a year; but this is what the novel’s protagonist, Said does. An advertising executive by chance, this bored individual discovers boxing at the venerable age of twenty-eight. After a few fights he packs in his job – only to be mullered by a seasoned British boxer in Dubai.

Translated by Khaled Rajeh

Posted by тнє ѕυℓтαη’ѕ ѕєαℓ | ختم السلطان

Posted by тнє ѕυℓтαη’ѕ ѕєαℓ | ختم السلطان