Rome – For its Italian title alone, the book by Algerian author Amara Lakhous calls reader attention. In a country with a majorly Catholic population, in shop windows you may read Divorzio all’islamica a viale Marconi (Divorce Islamic Style on Marconi Boulevard). Published by Edizione E/O, the volume tells the story of a clumsy infiltrated agent, Christian – a Sicilian who speaks Arabic perfectly as his family lives in Tunisia -, who should discover the secret plans of a terrorist faction in the city. In the plot, instead of terrorists, Christian finds friends, the harsh reality of legal and illegal immigrants living in the country and love.
The book takes place in a neighbourhood of Rome, known for its large Arab immigrant population: the region of viale de Marconi, in Rome. The neighbourhood is where the majority of the Muslim population of Rome lives, and where Lakhous lived from 2002 to 2006. The author has lived in the city since 1995, when he migrated from Algeria. Apart from the stunts of Christian, the narrative also involves Sofia (or, better, Safia, in Arabic), a charming young woman who moved to Rome seeking the promises of her architect husband, who could only work making pizza once he got to Italy.
The difficulty with the names is the first dilemma of agent Christian: in Italy, all Arabs change their names. Italians do not understand, or refuse to understand Arab names, and also Chinese, Pakistani and Filipino names. Safia, named after the wife of great statesman and former prime minister of Egypt, Saad Zaghloul, became Sofia, like Sofia Loren, jokes the protagonist. Said, Safia’s husband, is called Felice and the same takes place with most of the characters in the book. That is also the case with the protagonist himself, Christian, who is actually called Issa. The plot, told lightly by the characters, is seen through the knowing eyes of Lakhous, graduated in Philosophy in Algeria and Cultural Anthropology in Rome.
Immigrants
To discover the terrorist nucleus, Christian started visiting Little Cairo, a kind of bar, Internet point and phone centre, where immigrants ring their relatives. That is where Christian makes friends and meets illegal immigrants. He meets Mohammed, the Moroccan who works as a street vendor and cannot renew his visa to remain in Italy. Mohammed is always running away from the police an ends up being aided by agent Christian.
The story also includes Omar, the Bengali entrepreneur. According to Christian, each immigrant is a small businessman at the service of the great family enterprise, which goes on back home, awaiting the return – financial, of course. For Omar’s travels, writes Christian, his family coughed up US$ 10,000. The Bengali was handed to an international people trafficking organisation. To get to Italy illegally, it took two months, through Russia.
After 10 years in the country, Omar’s character shares a room with another 10 immigrants, but honoured his family investment. What he made in Rome, writes the author, was used to pay the travel debt, redo the family house and establish a dowry for his youngest sister. This is rather true fiction.
Society
Christian’s discoveries accompany those of Sophia. The youth starts inquiring about her marriage and her husband’s biases, as he does not admit women working outside the home, and the western civilisation, which does not take well to her choice of wearing a headscarf. In a funny way, ironic, Sofia fights both. She works without her husband knowing, as a hairdresser, her passion from childhood, first with dolls, and then when she discovered that all women could be blonde, like Marilyn Monroe. And she wears a veil. It is during an argument about the veil, at the farmer’s market, that Sofia meets Christian, who defends her from an aggressor. After the improbable meeting, love is born.
Little by little, terrorism falls to the background of the plot and Lakhous paints a beautiful picture of the current Italian society and of the problem of immigration, a territory well known by the author, who dedicated his doctoral thesis to Muslim immigration into Italy.
Film
Divorzio is the author’s fourth book. The first dates back to 1999, Le cimici e il pirata (The Bug and the Pirate). Then came Come farti allattare dalla lupa senza che ti morda (How to be suckled by the she-wolf without getting bitten) and Scontro di civilità per un ascensore a piazza Vittorio (Clash of civilization over an elevator in Piazza Vittorio). The two former were published in Arabic and Italian, the latter, of 2006, won two important Italian awards. It was translated, apart from Arabic, into several languages and became a movie, directed by the Italian Isotta Toso, brought released in Italy last year.
*Translated by Mark Ament
