My Torturess by Bensalem Himmich (review)

The Moroccan philosopher and novelist Bensalem Himmich goes further than merely becoming embroiled in ideological diatribes, notwithstanding his skill in polemics. The truth of this assertion is measured in his tenth novel, Mu'adhdhibatī (My Torturess), the most crushing of his novels, which was published by Dar Al-Shurouq in Cairo in Arabic in 2010. My Torturess deviates from his hitherto literary comfort zone to dive into the shocking daily and political current events.

My Torturess opens with a letter that a mysterious woman, Na'ima, has slipped into Hamuda's pocket, a letter instructing him how to survive the hell he has descended into. The novel, told by a first-person narrator, is perhaps best understood as a trance session in which the dissociation from bodily torture prevails, Hamuda survives, and he decides to tell his story as a testimony for history. This narrative strategy is an immersion into terror.

Far from just criticizing the so-called War on Terror, extraordinary rendition, and wrongful incarceration, Himmich's novel paints the cruel story of a man, Hamuda, wrongly accused of terrorism, imprisoned without charge, and subjected to surreal violence. My Torturess functions as a window into an absurd and surreal world that voices the author's convictions and strong stand against post-9/11 injustices. My Torturess is nothing less than a moral cri de coeur.

The title, My Torturess, cleverly translated by Roger Allen, refers to "Mama Ghula," a notorious orgress whom Moroccan mothers often invoke in cautionary tales to frighten their children if they misbehave and fail to obey. A young, innocent child's fear of Mama Ghula seems an appropriate metaphor for Hamuda's experience.

Snatched at night by a "special unit," Hamuda ends up in a Kafkaesque ordeal: drugged, forced into a blue uniform, and taken to an unidentified location for interrogation about the whereabouts of his cousin, a suspected jihadi leader. When the authorities recognize his innocence, Hamuda, who should be seen as slipping through the cracks of the bureaucratic system, is then handed over to a special team to break him and force him to work as a professional spy, double agent, or hitman.

Once imprisoned, Hamuda metamorphoses from a human being into "Detainee Cell Number 112," where he steadfastly asserts his innocence: "I'm accused . . . of killing my mother's husband with a deadly slingshot, an accusation that I totally deny and reject. I am completely innocent" (33). From a closer distance, we follow Hamuda as he makes every effort to stay alive, despite his five-year physical and psychological torment, an ordeal reminiscent of many deep-rooted stories shared by Moroccans, Arabs, and many others around the world. Hamuda's recounting of his experiences works as a cathartic release.

That Himmich has his main character undergo such an absurd destiny suggests his desire to investigate human nature in a more personal yet distant way. The dark and absurd characteristics of this novel lean more toward existentialist philosophy. My Torturess's unflinching portrait of extraordinary rendition and wrongful incarceration bears witness to the visible and invisible scars that the War on Terror has left on the lives of many innocent people globally.

The narrative abounds with dark, gory scenes of torture that make even the thought of them more unbearable. With respect to perhaps the most infamous torture method of the War on Terror, the narrator says, "Now it was time for the infamous waterboarding. People say that, as the person being tortured is deprived of oxygen, he can look upon his own death time after time until he confesses and cooperates or else dies without doing either" (104).

My Torturess ends with yet another letter, this time from Hamuda to Na'ima, thanking her for her help and filling her in about his new life in a rural area, where he married and his wife is expecting a baby. The letter portrays Hamuda regaining his humanity and slowly returning to normal life. Here he informs her...