The Proof of the Honey

"Salwa Al Neimi is a Syrian writer who lives in Paris. She studied Islamic philosophy and theatre at the Sorbonne and has published five volumes of poetry and a collection of short stories. The narrator in her novel, The Proof of the Honey, works in an archive and has an interest in the ancient tradition of Arab erotological writings. That’s right. If you pick it up expecting a novel in that more Anglo-Saxon tradition of steady progress through the plot, then that doesn’t really happen in this book. It’s more of a series of encounters with different men which overlap, and they tie backwards and in and out of discourses and debates on the role of the erotic in Arab history. I suppose you could generalise and say it’s talking back to Western perceptions; she quotes a French writer who said that there’s no sex in Islamic society. She’s responding to that, in a way. I think what I like about it is that her voice is very loving, tender and honest. This is the sort of book that stays with you. It works on different levels within your consciousness. It’s kind of dreamlike in the way that the men in it blur together. They become indistinguishable, or the encounter folds out, and makes you feel like you’ve lived these encounters, or you are reliving all the encounters you’ve had in your life. There are also scenes of meeting up with other Arab writers and artists and filmmakers in European capitals, which is not something you see much of in literature. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It’s divided into 11 sections, which are called ‘The Gates’. She goes back to her childhood in Damascus, and her early ideas about sexuality and friendships and romantic encounters. It’s a softer way of seeing a country like Syria—seeing the beauty and romance of it through girls talking together about love and sex. She’s a very intelligent woman. Very brave. The book was banned in most Arab countries. In the countries where it was published, it was popular. But leaving the whole banning issue aside, it’s a book I’ve gone back to a number of times, because each time I read it I get a different level of appreciation for it."