The Book of Khalid

"This is the only one I picked that’s written in English. Part of the reason I picked a book written in English was to ask, ‘What do we mean by the Arabic novel? Does it have to be written in Arabic?’ Especially now, in the 21st century, there are a lot of people who identify as Arabs but are writing in other languages. Hisham Matar , Susan Abulhawa , Ahdaf Soueif and Layla Aboulela are all well-known examples. And there are probably more writing in French. The Book of Khalid is both an early example of an Arabic novel and an example of the Arabic-English novel. It’s about the migratory diaspora Arab experience and it’s very strange to read. It sits between Arabic and English literature in a striking way both in terms of plot and style. The novel’s set-up is a classic modernist trick. The unnamed narrator of the book comes across a manuscript in a library in Cairo, written by someone called Khalid, telling his life story. The narrator, using some other sources, weaves this into a fuller narrative telling the story of Khalid traveling to America in the early 20th century. This was a time when a lot of people from the Arab world emigrated to America just as Italians, Eastern European Jews and Irish people did too. In fact, in the steerage class of the Titanic, the largest single nationality was Syrian. The book, in part, is a description of this Arab immigrant experience in America and New York in particular: being quite poor, living hand to mouth, peddling to earn a wage—but in a very interesting and charismatic way. Then, about halfway through, the book becomes very strange. Khalid, upsetting the classic American immigrant story, goes back to the Arab world where he tries to become a prophet of the modern age who can unite the spirits of the East and the West into a new philosophy. He spends much of the last section of the book preaching in the Arab world. He’s very controversial, causing something of a scandal wherever he goes. At one point he’s kicked out of a mosque for what he’s saying but (without giving spoilers) the whole story ends without the triumphal end we seem primed for. The whole book is written in the most unusual way – it’s unlike anything I have ever read before. It’s a proto-modernist story of movement and Arab displacement and the attempt to reconcile East with West. It is also, at times, quite difficult to read. Sometimes, you feel you could be reading some lost masterpiece by James Joyce; at others, it feels like an overly literal translation of a classical Arabic poem; at others, it is more like a religious treatise written by a madman. On top of all of this, it’s also kind of Rihani’s life story too. He was born in what’s now Lebanon, moved to America, where he lived for a while, and then moved back to the Middle East, and traveled quite a lot. It’s a little bit like a fantasy autobiography. This book was very influential in the formation of the Arab American literary tradition. By far the best-known Arab-American writer, whom I assume many people will know, is Kahlil Gibran. He wrote The Prophet , which was very big in the mid-20th century but less so now. Gibran is, apparently, the third best-selling poet of all time. But I have always found him boring and painfully clichéd. Rihani knew Gibran. They’re trying to do a similar thing: revive the spirit of the East and combine it with the best parts of the West. Whereas Gibran seems hackneyed, Rihani, in his slightly mad-cap, crazy way, seems totally original."