A Sky So Close : A Novel

Despite a few instances of forced/unconvincing dialogue (this might be the translators fault), I generally found Khedairis novel touching and engaging. It also has the added value of being an insiders look at Iraq, a country that is much in American/European news these days. The novel avoids explicit politics, but certainly the politics of gender and war permeate the story in any case, even though the narrators very conscious disengagement helps her avoid clear political pronouncements.

The strength of the novel surely rests in the little details the girl notices about life in rural Iraq in the 70s and 80s, and in the portrayal of her warm relationship with her father. I remember hearing that cross-cultural experts often say that a single novel is better than reading ten non-fiction books about a place, if you really want to get to know it, and Khedairis book would seem to foot that bill well. One quibble I have with this aspect, though, is that the narrators extended family is strangely absent from the entire novel. Her Iraqi father has moved back to his home country with his British wife and child, but not a single relative figures in their lives at all? The same is true of her mothers non-existent English relatives when she moves to London with her late in the book. I think Khedairi does this to highlight the sense of isolation in the post-modern, post-colonial world, but I found this one aspect ill-conceived.