Beyond Babylon

Starred review from July 1, 2019
This vibrant and heartrending tale by Scego (Adua) braids together the lives of two mothers, two daughters, and the man who connects them all. Somali-Italian Zuhra Laamane was sexually assaulted as a child at boarding school and, in addition to the physical damage, she relates that her abuser “took all my colors,” so, in the present, she is “searching for them now like a madwoman around Rome.”
Mar Ribero Martino, the half-sister whom Zuhra has never met, was made by her lover Pati to get pregnant by a man named Vincenzo so they could have a child together, then forced to abort before Pati, having abruptly changed her mind, kills herself. Maryam Laamane, Zuhra’s mother, has left the violence in Somalia begun by the dictator Siad Barre and continued in the following civil war, while Miranda Ribero Martino Gonçalves, Mar’s mother, has escaped the disappearances of the Dirty War in Argentina. Maryam and Elias each tape their histories while the poetess Miranda writes hers down so that their daughters will understand where they come from. In the late aughts, Zuhra meets Mar and Miranda in Tunisia, where they have all traveled from Rome to study classical Arabic and where they begin to heal. Despite the violence that permeates the story, Zuhra eventually realizes that she has “so much strength inside, and hope, and happiness.” Robertson’s translation preserves Scego’s imagery but leaves intact the forays into Spanish, Arabic, and Somali, and Jhumpa Lahiri’s introduction excellently sets up the novel. This powerful tale winningly portrays the path from pain to recovery and wholeness.