BIOGRAFIE: Abdelkader Benali (1975) belongs
to the young generation of Dutch authors. He debuted in 1996, at the age
of twenty-three, with his novel Wedding by the Sea. Since then,
within a decade’s time, he has written a large and varied body of work,
which comprises literary prose (novels and short stories), poetry,
theatre, non-fiction and journalistic writing. Benali was born in
Morocco, but was raised and educated in The Netherlands. This explains
the important place which ethnicity and, in particular, Islamic culture
occupy in his earlier texts. Gradually, however, the shuttling between
two cultures gives way to a more extensive problematic, though the
author’s origins and consequently his hybrid experience of the world
continue to play a part. Benali has declared that he does not want to be
known as a multicultural author. As to this, the end of ‘One Day in
May’, the short story that Benali wrote for the PEN-project and which
has been published on this site, is rather significant. It tells us
about the protagonist-narrator who has accompanied the dead body of his
father to Morocco and has buried it there. When on the same day, he
returns to the spot, he cannot retrace the grave. Considering other
stories about the father-son relationship that can be frequently found
in Benali’s work, I interpret the end of the story as a manifest desire
to come to terms with the past in order to break new ground. In his most
recent and autobiographical text, Marathon runner (2007), the
I-Abdelkader Benali affirms: ‘I need abstinence and privation so that I
can achieve something. And thus I contend with the rituals of my family.
By running I blow up those rituals. By running away’ (p. 42). As
‘rag-and-bone man’ picking up whatever comes his way, and as a voracious
reader and an accomplished marathon runner, Benali clears himself a path
through the global village of world literature and current world history,
in search of his own identity.
Thus the main theme in Benali’s work is
concerned with individual identity. In his first novel identity is still
linked with the community in the native country; in the later novels and
short stories it is more connected with kinship and the relationship
between child and parent. Usually the father plays a more or less
important role in the sexual initiation of the adolescent. Sometimes the
relationship with one of the parents amounts to a conflict; sometimes the
‘fall into consciousness’ takes place after the death of the father (see
for instance ‘One Day in May’).
Benali is not concerned with a
preconceived search of identity, but rather adheres to a quasi careless
discovery by trying out life in all its gradations, such as the Spanish
Carmen Lopez de La Madrid in May the Sun Shine Tomorrow: ‘Her
school of hard knocks’ [in the words of her ex-lover Malik] ‘had turned
out a risky series of adventures. But one thing was out of doubt:
she had given sense to her life just by searching as less as possible for
meaning and by taking profit as much as possible of the fullness of life’
(p. 238).
This ode on life and its abundant
fullness, exempt from any imperative frame, an existential attitude that
reminds one of Camus, is echoing throughout all of Benali’s texts. The
desire for exploring life, its dirt and mud as well as its beauty and
happiness, finds expression in a plethora of fragmentary stories, in loose
images and ideas overwhelming the reader, in capricious changes in
narrative perspective (especially in the novels abrupt transitions from
you to I and she/he narration are the rule rather than the exception) and
in a multitude of registers. There is a great deal of travelling in
Benali’s stories, imaginary as well as ‘real’ and the narrators experiment
with conventional as well as original symbols. Because of abrupt
transitions from real-life to fantasy and vice versa, the stories move
rapidly and obstacles in narrative logics are cleared away effortlessly.
Postmodernist interruptions too of narrative illusion occasioned by the
narrator’s remarks regarding the limitless possibilities of the text, make
smooth the narrative terrain. The body and corporality play an important
role in the narratives.
Through word play, Benali deconstructs
the idea of the absurdity of life, which permanently comes to the surface
during the narrative expeditions of the virgin territories of life. As a
rule he makes use of colloquial language made up of neologisms and
idiolect. Thanks to his stylistic skills, Benali excels in portraying
social types; but because of this stress on familiar language, his
characters generally remain empty cartridges. Although he challenges the
wayside shrines of decency and reasonableness, and likes to underline the
grotesque of characters and situations, his humor and irony remain mild
and distant. His satire and parody rarely turn to cynism and perversion
(in this he differs from one of his favorite authors, Céline). In
accordance with the young generation of post-postmodern authors, he uses
language for parodying all sorts of conventions and for violating taboos.
For want of a clear worldview, each story serves as a stage in an
expedition towards an unattainable end. In the words of the Abdelkader at
the end of Marathon runner: ‘But it still lasts. It still takes
ages’.
Els Jongeneel, University of Groningen,
The Netherlands
Works by Abdelkader Benali:
Wedding by the Sea (novel,
1996) Geertjan Lubberhuizen Prijs for the best literary debut (1997), Prix
du meilleur roman étranger (Frankrijk 1999)
The Unfortunate (theatre, 1999)
Reports from MaanzaadCity
(short stories, 2001)
The Long-awaited (novel, 2002)
Libris Literatuurprijs 2003
Yasser (theatre, 2002) Van der
Vlies-prijs 2002
The Argentine (short novel,
2002)
Unclean (novel, 2003)
Poems for the Summer (2003)
The Malamud-novel (novel, 2004)
May the Sun Shine Tomorrow (novel,
2005)
Morocco Through Dutch Eyes 1605-2005
(non-fiction, co-author Herman Obdeijn, 2005)
Feldman and I (novel, 2006)
Panacee (poems, 2006)
Reports from a BesiegedCity (diary,
2006)
Who can resist Paradise (briefwisseling
met Michaël Zeeman, 2006)
Marathon runner (novel, 2007)
One Day in May (short story,
2007)
