The Kindness of Enemies
Leila Aboulela
[Grove Press]
The Kindness of Enemies features several exotic backdrops, including Dagestan, St. Petersburg, Khartoum, and… Aberdeen. Aboulela depicts two storylines, told with considerable literary style. She alternates describing the travails of Natasha Wilson (née Hussein), a Sudanese-Russian history lecturer working in Scotland, with fictionalised portrayals of Imam Shamil (the 19th century Muslim warrior who united the tribes of the Caucasus against Russian military expansion) and several characters from his entourage. Shamil is a primary research interest of Natasha’s, so she is intrigued when her favourite student, Oz (short for Osama), reveals that he is a descendant of the warrior. A visit to Oz’s home – under the pretext of seeing the chieftain’s sword – has intriguing consequences for Natasha, Oz, and his mother, Malak, with questions raised as to Oz’s sympathy for jihadi causes like those advocated by Shamil.
Aboulela’s strong narrative drive in exploring Natasha’s self-obsessed paranoia is compromised by the sub-Tolstoy historical set pieces throughout. The author directs her efforts towards creating engaging storylines and characters, without clearly linking common themes between the plots. Just as the reader’s interest in one scenario or character is increasing, she insists on moving the action across hundreds of years and thousands of miles. We are left wondering how the book might have been with tighter storytelling, or a more cohesive structure.
Words: Stephen Cox
