Seeds of Corruption, and: Children of the Waters, and: Dunyazad (review)

The English translations of works by Sabri Mousa, Ibtihal Salem, and May Temissany offer new insights into the political and economic challenges facing modern Egyptian society. The rich material and prose reflect the process of globalization sweeping Egypt, poverty, gender inequality, and women's sexuality. While Seeds of Corruption narrates the tale of the process of modernizing Egypt from the nineteenth century until King Farouq in 1952, Children of the Waters takes us to the daily lives of Egyptians under the regimes of Nasser and Sadat. Contemporary Egyptian society and waves of globalization are the subject of Dunyazad.

Seeds of Corruption is set in the eastern desert, Darhib, in Egypt and tells the story of Nicola, a man without a country. Through Nicola, the main character, Mousa tells an enchanted story about the corruption of urban life and the purity of the desert and its people. Nicola grows up in Istanbul, the son of Russian émigrés, and then lives for some years in Italy. He marries Ilya, and they have a daughter, also named Ilya. Influenced by his friend Mario, a mining engineer, Nicola becomes obsessed with stories about the Nile, its desert, and the mountains containing a vast variety of minerals and ores. Leaving his family behind, Nicola joins Mario on a ship that carries them to a new life in Darhib.

Nicola's trajectory takes place against the backdrop of the westernization movement that began in Egypt in the nineteenth century. The determined and learned Nicola explores the desert, obtains a permit to drill the mountains for minerals and eventually becomes the owner of one of the mines. Nicola recruits men from the desert tribes, and his mine becomes successful. Soon Nicola becomes part of the desert and the mountainous landscape. The detailed and beautiful description of the landscape is reflected in the novel's structure, as the narrative continuously shifts between past and present events, the history of the desert tribes, myths, and what goes on inside Nicola's head. In the desert, Nicola learns from the tribes how to survive in the desert and becomes acquainted with its secrets. As for dealing with the city bureaucracy, Nicola leaves that to Antun Bey, his Cairo partner. When his now grown daughter, Ilya, joins him from Italy, Nicola leaves her with the childless Antun Bey, but Ilya feels suffocated by the city life, and her spirit can only run free in the desert, like her father.

Although the mine in Darhib uses modern technology and explosives to drill, it relies on the pulse of the desert and the knowledge and manpower of its people. Nicola keeps drawing maps and digs deep tunnels to extract talc to export to Cairo. Nicola even develops the port of Ra's Banas, on the Red Sea, to more effectively transport the riches of the Darhib. However, with the growing reputation of Nicola's mine among Cairo's aristocracy, it becomes a showpiece to the extent that the king, and here we are meant to think of King Farouq of Egypt, who was supported by the British, makes arrangements to come and visit the mines.

Thus, the process of polluting the waters of the Red Sea and the desert begins with the arrival of the urban aristocracy. To entertain the king and his entourage, the Bedouins and the fishermen are ridiculed by the city people. When the fisherman 'Abd Rabu Krishab is made to fulfill his oath to wed the sea mermaid after catching it, he is forced to have sex with the sea cow. Similarly, women are violated; Nicola's daughter innocently accompanies the king on a hunting trip and is raped by him. Nicola's inability to protect his treasured desert landscape from the corrupted city people nor to protect his daughter leads him to delirium, and he escapes to...