NAPHTALENE
A NOVEL OF BAGHDAD
ALIA MAMDOUH
Translated by Peter Theroux
FOREWORD BY HÉLÈNE CIXOUS
AFTERWORD BY F. A. HAIDAR
Published by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406, New York, NY 10016
Paperback published in 2006 by the Feminist Press
Hardcover published in 2006 by the Feminist Press
First published in Arabic as Habbat-al-Naphatalin by al-Hay’ah al-Masriah al-Amah li-al-Kitab, Cairo, 1986.
Original text © 1986 by Alia Mamdouh
Translation © 1986 by Peter Theroux
Foreword © 2005 by Hélène Cixous
Afterword © 2005 by F.A. Haidar
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used, stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Mamdauoh, ‘aAliyah.
[oHabbaat al-naftaalain. English]
Naphtalene : a novel of Baghdad / Alia Mamdouh ; translated by Peter Theroux.
p. cm.
I Theroux, Peter. II. title
PJ7846.A543H3313 2005
892.7’36—dc22
2005000682
eISBN 978-155861-712-4
This publication was made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
12. Chapter Six
13. Chapter Seven
14. Chapter Eight
15. Chapter Nine
16. Chapter Ten
17. Chapter Eleven
18. Chapter Twelve
19. Chapter Thirteen
20. Chapter Fourteen
21. Chapter Fifteen
22. Chapter Sixteen
23. Afterword
24. About the Author
25. About the Feminist Press
26. Also Available from the Feminist Press
NAPHTALENE
Naphtalene repels moths. But this Naphtalene preserves the remnants, clothing, and memories of two powerful sites of childhood: a little girl and the great city of Baghdad. And this Naphtalene also recalls its chemical origins, its relationship to gasoline and fire, and its links to perfumes, dyes, and odors. This Naphtalene causes the closet in which it is kept and from where it keeps watch to erupt in flaming sentences. What Naphtalene protects is destruction, dislocation, and the pain of love and hate. Naphtalene sings life at its most intense; for here the singer of life’s opera is the most poetic being in the world: a child, and what is more—a child half-boy, half-girl.
Alia Mamdouh’s stunning gesture is to have turned over the keys of the narrative to the violent sensitivities and superior intelligence of childhood. Seen by the untamed, wild, immediate, and uncalculating eyes of a youth, the world appears in monstrous
