Adua

by Igiaba Scego

  It is often erroneously believed that colonialism was merely the work of fascism, when instead it characterized the politics of the Kingdom of Italy from the start. Its first act, virtually on the heels of Italian unification, was the acquisition of the Bay of Assab by the Rubattino shipping company in 1869.

  Zoppe’s story covers the temporal arc just before the Walwal incident, or Abyssinia Crisis (1934), which served as Italy’s casus belli against Ethiopia. Zoppe’s visions also allude to some subsequent events, such as the use of poison gas (prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol) during the Ethiopian War and the retaliation following the failed attempt on Rodolfo Graziani (1937). After this episode, Addis Ababa was devastated, soothsayers and storytellers targeted for persecution, accused of having incited the population to rebel against the Italian colonizers. Other instances of retaliation include the bloody massacre of the deacons at the monastery of Debra Libanos.

  My research for Adua involved examining films, photographs, biographies of more or less famous actresses (like Dorothy Dandridge, Anna May Wong, Nina Mae McKinney and especially Marilyn Monroe), as well as studying Italian cinema (especially erotic films from the ’70s - ’80s) and commercial television from the ’80s - ’90s.

  Meanwhile, Titanic comes from my work with refugees. The migrant body faces not only racism and suspicion from natives, but increasingly also distancing (or even open hostility) from the very “community” to which they belong. In the Adua-Titanic relationship there is this strong ambiguity.

  For more information, I recommend the pamphlet La negazione del soggetto migrante (The Negation of the Migrant Subject, Stampa Alternativa, 2015) by Flore Murard-Yovanovitch.

  On the subject of migrants and refugees, there are numerous books I could suggest, two of which have been essential for my own education: Nuruddin Farah’s Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (Cassell, 2000) and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Aunt Lute Books, 1987).

  One final note; for narrative reasons, I’ve introduced minor anachronisms. I moved up Maria Uva’s visit to Port Said by a year (it actually began in 1935) because to me this woman is symbolically important. Moreover, I have no evidence of the presence of black interpreters in Rome in 1934, though I do know, from documentary and family sources, of their presence during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935 - 36). My grandfather was an interpreter under colonialism, even working for Rodolfo Graziani. For these reasons, I’ve always wondered about the translation process, and especially the suffering experienced by the interpreter who is also a colonial subject. I stuck to the limited and ephemeral knowledge in my possession as much as I could and the rest came from my heart and my writing.

  GLOSSARY

  Aabe: father

  Abaayo: sister, also a female form of address

  Adoon: servant, slave

  Afar indhood: four eyes

  Aliif, taa, miim, ra, saad, daad, shiin, siin: letters of the Arabic alphabet

  Aniga waxaan ahay saaxiibka: I am your friend

  Balaayo: nuisance

  Bariis iskukaris: rice pilaf with meat

  Beer iyo muufo: liver and muufo flatbread

  Caano geel: camel milk

  Cadar: perfume

  Dhuhr: Islamic midday prayer

  Duco: prayer, supplication

  Faaliyaha: soothsayer

  Gaal: infidel, foreigner, white person

  Ganbar: stool

  Garbasaar: shawl

  Garees: woman’s wrap dress

  Gorgor: vulture

  Gudniinka: infibulation

  Guntiino: women’s one-shoulder wrap dress

  Hooyo: mother

  Injera: bread typical of the Horn of Africa

  Jeerer: nappy hair, derogatory term for the Somali Bantu

  Jelabiyad: Arab-style men’s tunic

  Jidaal: dry season

  Karbaash: whip

  Labo dhegax: two stones

  Macaan: sweet

  Maghrib: Islamic sunset prayer

  Maktuub: already written

  Maskiin: poor (thing)

  Munar (munaaradda): lighthouse, watchtower

  Oday: old man, elder

  Qofkii aammuso waa dhintay: he who is silent dies

  Sanbuusi: samosa, pastry filled with meat and onions

  Sanjibiil: ginger

  Shaah: tea

  Shaah cadees: milk tea

  Shaash: head scarf

  Sharmutta: prostitute

  Sheeko sheeko, sheeko xariir: story, story, story of silk (the first line of many Somali folktales)

  Si fiican u tirtir: dry yourself well

  Siil: vagina

  Tena yistilign: Amharic greeting

  Tukul: hut, traditional house with thatched roof

  Waan isku xaaray: I shit myself

  Wallahi: Arabic oath, affirmation

  Xalwo: common confection in the Horn of Africa, halva

  Xayaay: help

  Xus: celebration

  Yaad tahay?: Who are you?

  Zab: celebratory feast

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I have many people to thank.

  First of all, thank you to Leonardo De Franceschi. He was the person to ask me to write an afterword for his book L’Africa in Italia. Per una controstoria postcoloniale del cinema italiano (Africa in Italy: Towards a Postcolonial Counter-History of Italian Cinema, Aracne, 2013). That afterword led me to reflect on themes that I would later develop in this novel. Without that afterword, Adua might not exist. Thank you Leonardo, from the bottom of my heart.

  The novel also came from another inspiration. One day the Roman writer Giacometta Limentani showed me one of her childhood photos, of her as a little girl and three probably Somali askaris in the Prati neighborhood. It was the first anniversary of the conquest of Ethiopia and Mussolini put on a big parade on Via dei Fori Imperiali. It was an incredible photo. I looked at it and my heart filled with contradictory sensations. How pretty little Giacometta was and how proud those three Somalis on foreign duty were. I also thought that those four people brought together by chance shared (even if they didn’t know it at the time) a destiny. Giacometta, a Jewish girl, and the askaris, subjects of an African colony, would go through 1938 and its atrocious racial laws. That photo in a certain sense represented the calm before the storm. This is why I included the Jewish girl and her parents in the story. The little girl isn’t Giacometta, but she represents the common destiny of those who suffered under fascism.

  And naturally I want to thank my family for putting up with me. Mama and Papa, first of all. Two fantastic parents who always support me. I am lucky to have such wonderful parents. Then my two brothers, Abdul and Mohamed, my cousins-sisters-more than sisters Zahra and Sofia, Ambra, Andrea, Mohamed Deq and my sister-in-law, Nura. I’ve been quite busy and I neglected them a little. But without them this book could not have come into existence.

  I would also like to thank Rino Bianchi because in some way Adua grew our of our work on the book Roma negata. Percorsi postcoloniali nella città (Negated Rome: Postcolonial Routes through the City, Ediesse, 2014). Seeing his photographs motivated me to make Adua into a kind of symbol.

  I want to thank my actress friends Esther Elisha and Gamey Guilavogui. Even if they are contemporary actresses, they often have to deal with a star system anchored in old stereotypes. But they are strong women and they don’t give in. In a sense, Adua is dedicated to them, women who were able to make a destiny different than that of this book’s protagonist. Esther and Gamey are fighters, and if cinema (and theater) changes in Italy it will be because of people like them.

  I also want to thank Chiara Belliti, who helped me in the work of editing and taught me to trim the excess. What I learned with her will not easily be forgotten. I thank Giunti and Benedetta Centovalli for believing in this project.

  And a big thanks to Shaul Bassi, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Jama Musse Jama. This book was itinerant. I wrote it in Rome, but also in other cities, most impo
rtantly Venice (where I was Shaul’s guest), New York (Ruth’s), and Hargeisa (Jama’s).

  And I’d like to thank, in random order, the many friends who advised me and listened to me: Daniele Timpano, Elvira Frosini, Erika Manoni, Maria Cristina Olati, the “libri in testa” group (Elvio Cipollone, Michele Governatori, Nadia Terranova, Giuseppe Ierolli), Amin Nour, Amir Issa, Maaza Mengiste, Francesca Melandri, Katia Ippaso, Annalisa Bottani, Gabriella Kuruvilla, Viviana Gravano, Giulia Grechi, Tahar Lamri, Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, Tomaso Montanari, Tiziana Giansante, Chiara Nielsen, Frederika Randall, Clarissa Botsford, Valeria Brigida, the magazine Internazionale.

  Enormous thanks to my Rome, muse and constant source of inspiration.

  And yes, I’d like to thank Bernini. Without him, Adua wouldn’t have found a big-eared elephant to tell her story to. Our cultural heritage is also an affective heritage.

  Anyway, long live elephants!

  IF VENICE DIES BY SALVATORE SETTIS

  INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED ART HISTORIAN Salvatore Settis ignites a new debate about the Pearl of the Adriatic and cultural patrimony at large. In this fiery blend of history and cultural analysis, Settis argues that “hit-and-run” visitors are turning Venice and other landmark urban settings into shopping malls and theme parks. This is a passionate plea to secure the soul of Venice, written with consummate authority, wide-ranging erudition and élan.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/if-venice-dies/

  A VERY RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS

  THIS IS RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS CELEBRATED IN supreme pleasure and pain by the greatest of writers, from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy to Chekhov and Teffi. The dozen stories in this collection will satisfy every reader, and with their wit, humor, and tenderness, packed full of sentimental songs, footmen, whirling winds, solitary nights, snow drifts, and hopeful children, the collection proves that Nobody Does Christmas Like the Russians.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/a-very-russian-christmas/

  THE MADONNA OF NOTRE DAME BY ALEXIS RAGOUGNEAU

  FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE JAM INTO NOTRE DAME Cathedral to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. The next morning, a beautiful young woman clothed in white kneels at prayer in a cathedral side chapel. But when someone accidentally bumps against her, her body collapses. She has been murdered. This thrilling novel illuminates shadowy corners of the world’s most famous cathedral, shedding light on good and evil with suspense, compassion and wry humor.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/madonna-notre-dame/

  THE YEAR OF THE COMET BY SERGEI LEBEDEV

  A STORY OF A RUSSIAN BOYHOOD AND COMING of age as the Soviet Union is on the brink of collapse. Lebedev depicts a vast empire coming apart at the seams, transforming a very public moment into something tender and personal, and writes with stunning beauty and shattering insight about childhood and the growing consciousness of a boy in the world.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/year-of-the-comet/

  MOVING THE PALACE BY CHARIF MAJDALANI

  A YOUNG LEBANESE ADVENTURER EXPLORES THE wilds of Africa, encountering an eccentric English colonel in Sudan and enlisting in his service. In this lush chronicle of far-flung adventure, the military recruit crosses paths with a compatriot who has dismantled a sumptuous palace and is transporting it across the continent on a camel caravan. This is a captivating modern-day odyssey in the tradition of Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/moving-the-palace/

  THE 6:41 TO PARIS BY JEAN-PHILIPPE BLONDEL

  CÉCILE, A STYLISH 47-YEAR-OLD, HAS SPENT THE weekend visiting her parents outside Paris. By Monday morning, she’s exhausted. These trips back home are stressful and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it’s soon occupied by a man she recognizes as Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation 30 years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that ensues, Cécile and Philippe hurtle towards the French capital in a psychological thriller about the pain and promise of past romance.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-641-to-paris/

  ON THE RUN WITH MARY BY JONATHAN BARROW

  SHINING MOMENTS OF TENDER BEAUTY PUNCtuate this story of a youth on the run after escaping from an elite English boarding school. At London’s Euston Station, the narrator meets a talking dachshund named Mary and together they’re off on escapades through posh Mayfair streets and jaunts in a Rolls-Royce. But the youth soon realizes that the seemingly sweet dog is a handful; an alcoholic, nymphomaniac, drug-addicted mess who can’t stay out of pubs or off the dance floor. On the Run with Mary mirrors the horrors and the joys of the terrible 20th century.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/on-the-run-with-mary/

  OBLIVION BY SERGEI LEBEDEV

  IN ONE OF THE FIRST 21ST CENTURY RUSSIAN novels to probe the legacy of the Soviet prison camp system, a young man travels to the vast wastelands of the Far North to uncover the truth about a shadowy neighbor who saved his life, and whom he knows only as Grandfather Il. Emerging from today’s Russia, where the ills of the past are being forcefully erased from public memory, this masterful novel represents an epic literary attempt to rescue history from the brink of oblivion.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/oblivion/

  THE LAST WEYNFELDT BY MARTIN SUTER

  ADRIAN WEYNFELDT IS AN ART EXPERT IN AN international auction house, a bachelor in his mid-fifties living in a grand Zurich apartment filled with costly paintings and antiques. Always correct and well-mannered, he’s given up on love until one night—entirely out of character for him—Weynfeldt decides to take home a ravishing but unaccountable young woman and gets embroiled in an art forgery scheme that threatens his buttoned up existence. This refined page-turner moves behind elegant bourgeois facades into darker recesses of the heart.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-last-weynfeldt/

  THE LAST SUPPER BY KLAUS WIVEL

  ALARMED BY THE OPPRESSION OF 7.5 MILLION Christians in the Middle East, journalist Klaus Wivel traveled to Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories to learn about their fate. He found a minority under threat of death and humiliation, desperate in the face of rising Islamic extremism and without hope their situation will improve. An unsettling account of a severely beleaguered religious group living, so it seems, on borrowed time. Wivel asks, Why have we not done more to protect these people?

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-last-supper/

  GUYS LIKE ME BY DOMINIQUE FABRE

  DOMINIQUE FABRE, BORN IN PARIS AND A LIFE-long resident of the city, exposes the shadowy, anonymous lives of many who inhabit the French capital. In this quiet, subdued tale, a middle-aged office worker, divorced and alienated from his only son, meets up with two childhood friends who are similarly adrift. he’s looking for a second act to his mournful life, seeking the harbor of love and a true connection with his son. Set in palpably real Paris streets that feel miles away from the City of Light, a stirring novel of regret and absence, yet not without a glimmer of hope.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/guys-like/

  ANIMAL INTERNET BY ALEXANDER PSCHERA

  SOME 50,000 CREATURES AROUND THE GLOBE— including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats and snails—are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/animal-internet/

  KILLING AUNTIE BY ANDRZEJ BURSA

  A YOUNG UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAMED JUREK, with no particular ambitions or talents, finds himself with nothing to do. After his doting aunt asks the young man to perform a small chore, he decides to kill her for no good reason other than, perhaps, boredom. This short comedic masterpiece combines elements of Dos
toevsky, Sartre, Kafka, and Heller, coming together to produce an unforgettable tale of murder and—just maybe—redemption.

  http://newvesselpress.com/books/killing-auntie/

  I CALLED HIM NECKTIE BY MILENA MICHIKO FLAŠAR

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  http://newvesselpress.com/books/called-necktie/

  WHO IS MARTHA? BY MARJANA GAPONENKO

  IN THIS ROLLICKING NOVEL, 96-YEAR-OLD ornithologist Luka Levadski foregoes treatment for lung cancer and moves from Ukraine to Vienna to make a grand exit in a luxury suite at the Hotel Imperial. He reflects on his past while indulging in Viennese cakes and savoring music in a gilded concert hall. Levadski was born in 1914, the same year that Martha—the last of the now-extinct passenger pigeons—died. Levadski himself has an acute sense of being the last of a species. This gloriously written tale mixes piquant wit with lofty musings about life, friendship, aging and death.