My Name Is Salma - Hardcover

Faqir, Fadia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038561098X ISBN 13: 9780385610988

Publisher: Doubleday, 2007

Synopsis

In her village of Hima in the Levant, Salma, a young goat-herd, has violated the code of her Bedouin tribe by becoming pregnant before marriage. To restore their honour, the villagers set out to kill her. Now a runaway from the men of her tribe, Salma's days playing the pipe for her goats and swimming in the spring are over. She is placed in prison for her own protection, and to the sound of her deafening screams, her newborn baby is taken away. After several years, when it seems the men have given up on their chase, she moves to England to seek asylum. So begins her new life in the permissive West. In the middle of the most English of English towns, Exeter, she learns good manners from her ancient landlady, and strives to have a social life at the local pub. But it is with the help of Parvin, a feisty Pakistani girl on the run from an arranged marriage, that Salma is finally able to forge a new identity. But deep in her heart the cries of her baby daughter still echo. When she can no longer bear them, she decides to go back to her village to find her. It is a journey that will change everything - and nothing. Slipping seamlessly back and forth between the olive groves of the Levant and the rain-slicked streets of Exeter, "My Name is Salma" is a searing novel of forbidden love, violated honour and a woman's courage in the face of insurmountable odds. Fadia Faqir's portrait of the fractured lives of immigrants caught up in a painful yet exhilarating cross-cultural encounter is both heartbreaking and humorous. It is a story that will leave no-one unmoved.

About this title

Review:

Told in the first person, the discontinuous narrative of Salma's life is as well constructed as a mosaic in which each tile is lovely in itself but helps to create a whole that is breathtaking. As Salma's life moves toward its inevitable climax, readers will be transfixed. Strongly recommended for all literary collections.
-- Andrea Kempf, The Library Journal

From the Author:

In her village of Hima in the Levant, Salma has violated the honour code of her Bedouin tribe. The village decides to kill her to cleanse their honour and restore order.
Salma's days as the village gathered are severed completely. She can no longer play the pipe for her goats or swim in the spring. She ends up in prison for her own protection and separated from her new baby. She seems fated to a lifetime in protective custody, but when the men of the tribe have seemingly stopped their chase, Salma flees to a monastery on the shores of the Mediterranean then is helped to England to seek asylum.
Salma's journey out of Hima and through England, rippling with alienation, fear and humour, reflects my preoccupation with the fractured lives of exiles and immigrants caught up in a painful yet exhilarating cross-cultural encounter. From a rural life in Hima, to a monastery in Lebanon, to boarding a ship with a nun, to a British detention centre, to Branscombe in the house of a Quaker, to a hostel for asylum seekers in Exeter, to living with her landlady Elizabeth, a child of the British empire, to her own property in King Edward street, then back to Hima to look for her long lost daughter.
Away from the colours and smells of her Bedouin village, Salma finds herself culturally dispossessed in the middle of the most English of towns, Exeter. `Now Salma the dark black iris of Hima must try to turn into a Sally, an English rose, white, confident, with an elegant English accent, and a pony.' It is with her ancient landlady that she learns the mannered ways of the English. She attempts a social life at the local pub, but refuses to drink alcohol, and forms a friendship with a feisty young Pakistani girl, Parvin, who is also running away - from an arranged marriage.
Salma's escapes from strict morality of her village and ends up in a western society with few restrictions. If penalties are in place for sex out of wedlock in the Levant it is encouraged in the UK and without it she might not experience any intimacy or human contact. She is constantly drawn to her idyllic/cruel rural past in the old country, and is trying to grapple with an alien, indifferent, but liberal society in the new country. Salma is torn and is always trying to negotiate a new path. She ends up in England with a new composite identity, but with the same old, torn heart. It tugs her back to Hima, to her daughter.

A fugitive Salma, Sal, Sally, watches other Muslims practicing their religion and is unable to reconcile herself with the innocent shepherdess she once was. Has she managed to break away from the social and religious structures of her old country? Or by running away and moving further from the self has she moved even closer to herself and her old culture?
Living by her Immigrant Survival Guide, Salma settles down and falls in love with an English man. But deep in her heart she can still hear the cries of pain and the Bedouin keen and drums. One day, Salma decides to go back to her village to find her daughter. It is a journey that will change everything.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 038561098X
• ISBN 13: 9780385610988
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288