****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Mai’s elegantly crafted debut novel An Unlasting Home was an absolute delight.Its structure and portrayal of each character are engaging and, in my opinion, incredibly satisfying. At the most simplistic level, readers will discover a beautifully written origin story about Sara, a philosophy professor at Kuwait University, who is tried for blasphemy in a not-so-dystopian reality. But this novel has many layers to it. I emphatically echo the many positive reviews already given but the bottom line is that this book is guaranteed to captivate your attention.Many, myself included, will identify with this multigenerational story about women tied to a nascent state–Kuwait–whose social, cultural, and political identities are in a state of flux. The resulting ambiguous country narrative creates an unstable albeit fascinating backdrop for the evolution of the characters in this sublime storytelling exercise. With the national identity morphing from tribalism and liberalism to forms of national conservatism and religious fundamentalism, we witness inevitable clashes with Mai’s protagonists who seem perpetually drawn like magnets to this country. It tells the enduring story of turbulent times that follow a crisis–a love lost, a betrayal, a nation invaded.An Unlasting Home is a tale of life-altering choices–cause and effect–with an undertone of impending doom that rears its head insidiously over generations culminating in Sara’s judgment in this distraught nation. Much of it is accepted as maktoob (fate) by our characters–thoughts of determinism cross my mind. It is also a story of resilience amidst the uncompromising and, often, threatening patriarchal culture. But it is also one of love and loss. The love of a rich and diverse past that has roots in ancient empires; the powerful but sometimes unforgiving love for family and friends; and the love for the freedom that each woman has fought for across space and time. Equally, we discern the depth of the loss suffered by each character which feels almost compounded, as if inherited or maybe exacerbated by the absence of a relatable national identity.This is a story of discordance. The beautiful portraits of Lulwa, Yasmine, Noura, Maria, and Sara reveal rebellious women who sought, without always taking, a different path and whose wavelength is often misaligned with that of their communities. Although more obvious with Sara, due maybe to the anxieties of the information age and that compounding effect, we clearly feel their unease with past and present oppression. Despite the risks and warnings, we witness Sara accepting a burden–maybe a way for her to liberate others from that oppression–that ultimately results in her predicament.This novel is timely. In an era of growing nationalism, we must acknowledge humankind’s interconnectedness. Having lived peacefully as stateless hunters and gatherers for millennia, it is our collective duty to question identity, belonging, and borders. Like the birds that have inspired the book’s title, we have migration engraved deep in our genes. Alas, time has made us amnestic to that fact. As a global citizen who, similarly to Sara, has lived an expatriate life for many decades, I relate to the inner conflicts and, sometimes, dissociation from the local narrative, Eastern and Western.I cannot recommend it enough and I am eager to discover more of her work. Bonne lecture!
