This month marks the publication by London-based Telegram Books of the
debut novel of a striking new talent in Arab fiction, the
Anglo-Palestinian writer Mischa Hiller. “Sabra Zoo” is a searing and
accomplished novel that takes the reader back to the bloody events in
Beirut in summer 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Hiller
was born in Hull, northern England, in 1962 to a Palestinian father and
English mother. He grew up in Durham, London, Beirut and Dar Es Salaam
and currently lives in Cambridge, England.
The engaging
first-person narrator of his novel is the 18-year-old son of a Danish
mother and a father who is a PLO official. Ivan’s parents have left
Beirut in the evacuation by sea of PLO forces after the two-month
Israeli siege and bombardment of the city.
The novel opens three
days after the evacuation. Ivan is euphoric: “The war was over and I
was parent-free for the first time, with my own apartment. I couldn’t
ask for more.” But his optimism is premature, and he will soon find
himself caught in a perilous situation.
Ivan works as an interpreter
at a Red Crescent hospital at Sabra Palestinian refugee camp, which is
treating victims of the siege and bombardment. During the siege, nearly
7,000 people were killed and 30,000 wounded, more than 80 percent of
them civilians from West Beirut. More than 2,000 of those seriously
wounded were burnt by phosphorus bombs.
Ivan is street-wise and
witty, yet vulnerable. He is constantly distracted by the attractions
of women and is eager for experience. He is particularly drawn to
Norwegian physiotherapist Eli, an older married woman with a son. Ivan
is, to some extent, an outsider, with his mixed parentage,
part-European looks and education at a school in Copenhagen. Those
meeting him for the first time often ask about his Russian-sounding
name.
Hiller lived in Beirut himself for 10 years on and off,
leaving in winter 1982. In writing the novel “I used some of my
experience briefly interpreting for foreign medics and journalists in
1982, although I want to be very clear that this is definitely a work
of fiction and not my story,” he told Saudi Gazette. “My experience did
provide the feel, emotion and even humor of the situation and hopefully
allowed me to create a compelling point of view in Ivan – although I
suspect his preoccupations are the same as teenage boys everywhere.”
Hiller
delineates his characters, even minor ones, with skill, and the
dialogue is expertly pitched. These qualities are apparent in Ivan’s
interactions with the team of international medical volunteers. They
include diminutive strong-minded Dr. Asha Patel and Scottish doctor
John. The medical team members work intensively in the day and party
hard at night.
One of Ivan’s closest buddies is his Lebanese
driver, Samir, who had also been the driver of Ivan’s father. Samir
also runs a little café, taking pride in his “special sauce.” He may
have a crude womanizing side, but he is at the same time a warm and
endearing character.
Ivan gradually reveals to the reader that his
parents’ marriage has been crumbling since the accidental death some
years earlier of his younger brother Karam in a fall from a balcony.
When
Eli asks Ivan to help with a patient Youssef, a patient in his early
teens whose foot has been badly damaged by an Israeli cluster bomb,
Ivan is reminded of Karam who would have been of a similar age to
Youssef were he still alive. Youssef is reluctant to try using
crutches, and Ivan manages to get him to have a go. He becomes
increasingly involved in helping Youssef back to recovery.
Ivan is
leading a compartmentalized life, of which his work at the hospital is
only one part. He has remained in Beirut at the request of a PLO
official so as to courier forged documents and passports between PLO
cadres who are living in hiding. Ivan’s Danish passport allows him to
move relatively easily around the city. But there is a traitor among
the comrades.
At the same time he works for an American TV company
which brings him into the world of international journalists crowded
into the Commodore Hotel. This adds a dimension to the novel of seeing
the violence through the eyes and recordings of Bob, the American for
whom Ivan translates.
Matters become increasingly precarious after
the Commander of the Lebanese Forces and President-Elect Bashir Gemayel
is assassinated. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invade West Beirut and
their Phalangist allies conduct raids. There is tension on every
corner, and hooded informers betray people at roadblocks. An atmosphere
of paranoia and danger builds up.
The Palestinian refugee camps
after the PLO withdrawal have been left exposed and defenseless. The
violence culminates in one of the most ghastly episodes in the modern
history of the Middle East: the massacre of hundreds or thousands of
Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, under the
noses of the IDF.
The Israeli government’s Kahan Inquiry of 1983
concluded that while the Phalangists were directly responsible for the
massacre, Israeli forces were indirectly responsible. The report
ultimately forced the reluctant resignation of Ariel Sharon as Defense
Minister, but this was only a temporary blip in his brutal record in
relation to the Palestinians.
“Sabra Zoo” is a fast-paced read
with an economical style, and readily lends itself to a film treatment.
Hiller wrote a film adaptation after completing the novel, while
waiting for it to be sold to a publisher, “simply because I had always
wanted to write a screenplay and love film as a story-telling medium.”
In 2009 his screenplay won the European Independent Film Festival
script competition.
Hiller says: “I did not study creative writing
as such, but read a lot of screenplays to see how it was done. Since my
writing style is sparse anyway, I was attracted to the idea that you
can tell a story in 90 to 120 pages of double-spaced type, which is the
ultimate in stripped-down writing.”
Hiller is now working on his
second novel, in which “an orphaned survivor of the events of Sabra and
Shatila is groomed and recruited by a mysterious PLO member to work for
him secretly in Europe.” The sale of the book has yet to be finalized,
but Hiller hopes that it will be published next year. – SG
