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Saara
by
Mbarek Ould Beyrouk
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Saara |
| Author: | Mbarek Ould Beyrouk |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 2022 (Eng. 2025) |
| Length: | 151 pages |
| Original in: | French |
| Availability: | Saara - UK |
| Saara - Canada | |
| Saara - Canada (French) | |
| Saara - France | |
| Saara - España |
- French title: Saara
- Translated by Rachael McGill
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Our Assessment:
B+ : some very fine storytelling, well done
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Le Monde | . | 21/1/2023 | Kidi Bebey |
From the Reviews:
- "Bien que leurs histoires soient riches en péripéties et foisonnantes de personnages, on ne sent pas moins l’ensemble du livre s’éloigner du genre romanesque pour emprunter la voie du conte à caractère philosophique. La narration teintée de féerie tragique des débuts du livre le cède progressivement au réalisme cru et brutal du monde (.....) Avec légèreté, sans jamais imposer ses idées, l’écrivain ouvre à ses lecteurs des pistes de réflexion sur le devenir du monde. Un roman à lire autant qu’à méditer." - Kidi Bebey, Le Monde
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
There are three narrators in Saara, telling their overlapping stories in successive chapters: Saara, 'The Sheikh' -- Qotb --, and 'The Beggar' -- called Jid.
Most of the novel is set in northwestern Mauritania, in the small city of Atar and a nearby (fictional) village-oasis, Louad; Saara does also travel to the capital, Nouakchott, but this is a novel of the heartland, Nouakchott dismissed as a place with no soul, "a city that nobody liked because it liked nobody".
Louad, on the other hand is a secluded idyll that seems almost frozen in time: as Saara, who lives in Atar, notes, it: "was a few kilometres away from us and light years from the rest of the universe", while the sheikh recalls a friend of his telling him: "we belonged to another century, another era".
At eighteen, the sheikh had taken over from his father, becoming: "the sheikh of our path, the chief of our tribe and the humble owner of the whole of Louad and a few kilometres beyond"; the still young man is here the: "head of a medieval brotherhood in a remote village".
While they keep to themselves and try to maintain the traditional, simple ways, modernity, in the form of the state and of 'progress' are hard to keep completely at bay.
Nearby Atar looms ever closer:
Just a few kilometres from our little settlement, the nearest city was expanding. It was about to encroach on us; to tear at the very fabric of what we held most dear, to suck the lifeblood out of our community, to prey on people's hearts and minds.The threat has now become even clearer, as the sheikh is informed that: "the government has decided to build a dam here" -- one that would literally uproot much of the oasis and its inhabitants, as: "Half of Louad would be razed to the ground". The sheikh (and his followers) are opposed to these plans, but modernity -- and the corrupt mayor who will be getting a slice of the dam-project pie -- are hard to stand up to. A man of pure faith, the sheikh looks for spiritual guidance, but harsh reality's steamroller quality is hard to counter.
Saara and the beggar are more familiar with everyday harsh reality. Left to make her own way at a young age, Saara had: "developed a habit of independence detrimental to decorum and to faith", She comes to Louad when she hears her mother is dying, and there comes to the attention of the sheikh who is drawn to the strong-willed woman. The beggar, meanwhile, has always had a difficult life, and struggles with a deaf and mute beggar-mother.
The personal struggles of the three narrators do play a prominent role in the novel, from Saara's desperate search for her sister ("I'll face anything the world throws at me. I'll deny my own joys. I'll trample on sacred books just to hold you in my arms", she vows) to the sheikh's disappointment in his own marriage and his difficulties in dealing with his feelings for Saara. Looming over all this is the impending destruction of Louad -- and with it so much else.
Beyrouk presents this story with almost disarming ease; there is a casualness to the storytelling -- especially in the sheikh's philosophical but also forthright and natural accounts -- that keeps the novel from succumbing to the trap that so much fiction pitting the traditional and capitalist modernity falls into. Yet there's also a great deal of raw darkness here -- and, admirably, Beyrouk realistically limits that amount of light that brightens the scenes. So also the resolutions and conclusion impress -- down to the final devastating plunge into the abyss.
- M.A.Orthofer, 12 February 2025
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Saara:
- Dedalus publicity page
- elyzad publicity page
- Libros de las Malas Compañías publicity page
- The Modern Novel
- Le Monde (French)
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Mauritanian author and journalist Mbarek Ould Beyrouk was born in 1957.
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© 2025 the complete review
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