Oh, Mar, you have so many cities within you. You represent Venice and also Genoa, Lisbon, Buenos Aires, Mogadishu, Rome. And who knows how many others, hija. What absurd journeys your ancestors made to be able to create you, star of my sky.Beyond Babylon, translated by Aaron Robertson from Igiaba Scego's Italian original Oltre Babilonia is the latest from Two Lines Press.The story focuses on two girls, half-sisters although they do not realise it, living in Rome, but of (part) Somalian descent.

This book demands a re-read from me. Because I need to admit here at the beginning of my review that this book was too erudite for me, the first time through. Not too complex or too experimental or too literary--what I mean is that this novel demanded an intellectual, humanistic and historical knowledge from me that I didn't have. Insurrecto by Gina Apostol is another novel I read recently that made me feel like my prior knowledge wasn't up to what the story demanded of me. In the case of Aposto...

[3.5] Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon, in Aaron Robertson’s excellent translation from the Italian, is a sprawling novel that examines black and mixed women’s experiences of contemporary Italy and its history of fascism through various strands of narrative that extend to Tunisia, Somalia, and Argentina in the past and now. All five main characters are given their own voice and we hear them in the same order in eight rounds, amassing into a sweeping novel of nearly 450 pages in relatively small typ...

Beyond Babylon is a kaleidoscopic novel that tells the interwoven stories of Zuhra and Mar, two Black Italian half-sisters who meet by chance at a Classical Arabic language school in Tunisia, as well as the stories of their mothers and their elusive father. Scego's prose moves from present-day Italy to the years of Argentina's cruel and repressive Dirty War, as well as Siad Barre’s brutal dictatorship in Somalia.This is not an easy read. There is a brutal description of a gang rape and episodes

I was really moved by the various perspectives in BEYOND BABYLON - the trauma of conflict, immigration, social and cultural expectations of women and women’s bodies... I feel like this book did so much and from multiple (mostly female) perspectives too! Admittedly there were moments midway through the novel that I felt a little lost amongst these perspectives as they continued to alternate (particularly the two half-sisters), though I did feel like this eased and they came together more as the n...

thoughts coming shortly

un po' come a dire che siamo fatti degli intrecci di chi ci ha preceduto, di chi ci ha amato, pensato, odiato, aspettato con pazienza. Un viaggio meraviglioso.

Surprised that it has not more reviews. This is a great book depicting two half sisters that are not aware of each other which the narrative brings us to Somalia and Argentina and their democratic struggles. It also talked about feminism, same sax love and female circumcision. Only drawback? I was surprised it was translated by a male as it is a very feminine book.

This novel is about women and trauma. Many traumas. (All the content warnings go here.)I struggled with this a bit. I am lost on why a classical Arabic language school in Tunis is the main setting. I was frustrated about one fact that never came to light to the female narrators. But the way the story is told--the mothers' traumas and secrets coming to light (one written, one recorded), and the daughters' own traumas narrated by them as they struggle to understand their own behaviors and mental h...

This took me a long time to get through. The book and the narrative itself were dense. But the writing was superb. It is probably due to a good translation, and when reading in translation I always wonder if I am reading the true story. I think Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller made me wary of all translations. But this was a good one and the words were so enrapturing that I enjoyed my experience. I'll have to read this book again however, the narratives so expertly interwoven t...

At once jumbled and concise, as well as political and personal. This book spans three continents, none of which is where I live. I like to occasionally check out international fiction, for the different cadence of thought. This one kept me on my toes keeping track of the connections. The reader gets to know the secrets of the main characters much deeper than characters around them know about each other. The ending was a little thin in comparison. The connections of Italy to Somalia and Argentina...

A masterpiece. A novel that contains everything I love about fiction and what I'd like to see more of. Without a doubt, this will be the best book I'll read this year. The prose was exquisite and due credit should be given to both the author and the translator for such beautiful writing. If anything, I'd learn Italian in order to read the original, because this was simply spectacular.

3.5/5 stars. I really like Igiaba Scego as a writer, this book included, but I did think that the idea of 'family history retelling' did not completely work for me. I've seen it work really well in Girl, Woman, Other, and also in Homegoing, but in Oltre Babilonia, I felt something was missing.

Prolisso a dei livelli disumani. La storia in sé è carina ma resa insostenibile da liste infinite di aggettivi, avverbi, ripetizioni.

A slow read that jumps through multiple perspectives an time periods.

Could have been something great, transcendent even. The oppression of imperialism, impact of authoritarian politics & warfare, and deep-rooted racism deeply woven in generational trauma. This book had so much potential.Sadly the author’s far-reaching agenda overtook narrative and plot, character voices indistinguishable from the next. Stream of consciousness the only device.

Fiction S287b 2019

I cannot speak highly enough of Scego's work. The voices that emerge from the page, their pain, their hopes are so uncomfortable and they need to be heard. Beyond the stereotypes of the desperate immigrant, across generations and identities.

This was one of the most confusing and engrossing books I have ever read. As soon as I read the last sentence, I was ordering the book for myself so I could read it again. (I originally checked it out from the library). The book is written through five different narrative voices; the chapters aren’t titled by the characters’ names, but rather traits of that specific character. For that reason, I found it challenging to track which character I was following in the chapter, and I kept getting thei...

Cinque voci ci accompagnano tra il passato della Somalia e un presente italiano. Sono unite dalla Somalia, da storie di sofferenza lontane tanto quanto l'Argentina negli anni del golpe militare o vicine come Roma negli anni zero.Sono tutte storie intense, sanguigne, dolorose - certe pagine mi hanno fatto male fisicamente.Lo stile varia a seconda dei personaggi, quasi tutte donne: alcune hanno una narrazione elegante, epica, come la voce di un documentario, altre sono trentenni che parlano a scat...