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THE LITTERSCAPE AND THE NUDE: HISTORY ESCAPES IN MANSUR BUSHNAF'S AL-ʿILKA (CHEWING GUM).
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 December 2018
Abstract
Mansur Bushnaf's al-ʿIlka (Chewing Gum; 2008) is the author's sole novel, born of his twelve-year imprisonment in a Libyan jail, and his reflection on the nation's subjection to international marginalization and dictatorial rule under Gaddafi. The novel is centered on a 19th-century nude which confounds all who encounter it, and which lies neglected in a corner of Tripoli's Red Palace Museum. Through this statue, and the novel's broader poetics of stasis and “chewing,” I explore how turāth in Bushnaf's work, and wider Libyan fiction, is depicted through its abject vulnerability and exposure to historical vicissitudes, reflecting the parallel exclusion of human lives from rights and agency. In al-ʿIlka, I examine how this is formulated into a defamiliarizing perspective on the postmodern, and on historical trauma and erasure, in which the possibility of narrative is a driving concern, rooted in existential reflection, as well as the real precarity of those who tell stories in Libya.
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Author's Note: I thank Ghassan Fergiani and Ghazi Gheblawi for their constant assistance and help in the research process, as well as for introducing me to Chewing Gum through their wider efforts in the publication of Libyan fiction in translation. I also thank the three reviewers of IJMES for their insightful suggestions as I developed this article.
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28 The novel was originally published in Cairo as Sarab al-Layl (Night Mirage; Cairo: Libiyya li-l-Nashr, 2008)Google Scholar. In 2014, it was translated by Mona Zaki, as Chewing Gum (London: Darf Publishers, 2014)Google Scholar. Sarab al-Layl itself was banned by the al-Qadhafi regime following its first publication. Almost ten years later, it has still not been republished. Darf Publishers is preparing to do so, and I have used its pdf. For this reason, my page number references may not correspond to those of the eventual publication, which will be published under the title al-ʿIlka. I reference both the English translation and the original Arabic. On some occasions, I provide my own translations, referencing the Arabic manuscript.
29 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka (London: Darf Publishers, forthcoming), 63.
30 Bushnaf's first play, Tadakhul al-Hikayat ʿInda Ghiyab al-Rawi (The Entanglement of Narratorless Stories), was staged in Benghazi.ʿIndama Tahkum al-Jirdhan (When Rats Rule) was scheduled to be staged but banned by the security services shortly before its opening night. See al-Asfar, “Mansur Bushnaf: ʿAshriyya al-ʿIlka al-Libiyya.”
31 Al-Asfar, “Mansur Bushnaf: ʿAshriyya al-ʿIlka al-Libiyya.”
32 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 73.
33 Ibid; al-ʿIlka, 112.
34 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 67.
35 Ibid., 36.
36 al-Qaddus, Ihsan ʿAbd, Biʾr al-Hurman (Beirut: Dar al-Nashr al-Ḥadith, 1962)Google Scholar.
37 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 36.
38 Ibid., 71.
39 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 23.
40 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 12.
41 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 34–35.
42 Ibid., 42.
43 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 8.
44 Ibid., 13.
45 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 5.
46 Ibid., 50.
47 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 50–51.
48 Ibid., 12.
49 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 6.
50 Bushnfa, al-ʿIlka, 39.
51 Ibid., 103.
52 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 7.
53 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 4.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
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60 Ibid., 33.
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64 Ibid., 25.
65 Ibid., 88.
66 Ibid., 55–56.
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70 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 72.
71 Ibid., 73.
72 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 18.
73 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 17.
74 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 79–80.
75 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 63.
76 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 18–19.
77 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 111.
78 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 125.
79 Bushnaf, al-ʿIlka, 116.
80 Bushnaf, Chewing Gum, 121.
81 Al-Asfar, “Mansur Bushnaf: ʿAshriyya al-ʿIlka al-Libiyya.”