Disoriental by Négar Djavadi

Abstract

Armand V, an ambassador in Norway’s foreign service: Oslo, Cairo, Jordan, Budapest, Madrid, and, finally, London—his career pinnacle. This diplomat had “a way with words” that allowed him to “master the game” for the “small country he served.” Supporting roles go to childhood friends, college classmates, other diplomats , two wives (N and her twin sister), a daughter (unnamed), a son (Are), and the son’s landlady. The ultimate focus, however, is on the father/son relationship between Armand and Are. Armand’s profession dictates that he publicly support his country’s involvement in foreign wars, yet privately he scorns combat, having lived through the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the still-running War in Afghanistan (on which Solstad had based Armand V in 2006). Throughout , the ambassador frames the United States with disdain in an unrelenting barrage of deferential diplomacy: “the world’s mightiest superpower,” “the most powerful nation in the world,” “the world’s one and only Superpower,” “the superpower US.” No surprise then that Armand is shocked when Are enlists, ending up on a murky mission “serving with a superior Western military power in impoverished Asia.” Solstad hints at mythology, modernizing the ancient lore of conflict. Consider the Norse god Odin and his sons, Thor and Höd (half-brothers), reflected in Armand and his son, Are. Odin hungered for wisdom , trading one eye for it, while Armand yearns for esteem, exchanging his ethical standards for it. Armand’s son exhibits elements of both Thor (god of thunder and war, who traveled to the enemy realm of the giants) and Höd (the blind “warrior” god). Are journeys to a faraway land, fighting alongside the giants (“the world’s one and only superpower”), and loses his sight. Solstad evokes Thor when a lightning bolt nearly strikes Armand and Are as they hike. All the while, Solstad chats merrily away with himself. Readers eavesdrop as the author toys with his emerging “us vs. them” tale, departing at times from the storyline to mosey around on other topics . His intellectual maneuvering is often hilarious. Already renowned in Scandinavian literature, Solstad once again brilliantly defies categories, this time in English. Lanie Tankard Austin, Texas Négar Djavadi Disoriental Trans. Tina Kover. New York. Europa Editions. 2018. 320 pages. Disoriental is the first novel of Négar Djavadi , a screenwriter based in Paris. It travels to Djavadi’s birthplace, Iran, to tell the saga of the Sadr family and, through them, that of Iran. The narrator of the novel, Kimiâ, one of the three daughters of Sara Nota Bene Paul Colize Back Up Trans. Louise Rogers Lalaurie Oneworld / Point Blank Books A mystery thriller translated from the French, Belgian author Paul Colize’s novel follows a journalist’s investigation into the connection between deaths of a rock-and-roll band’s members and another death separated by forty years. The rock-and-roll aesthetic of the plot kerrangs through the swift and exciting prose. Gerty Dambury The Restless Trans. Judith G. Miller The Feminist Press at CUNY Acting as witness to police violence in French Guadeloupe in the 1960s, this debut novel from English writer Gerty Dambury recalls the racial and class hierarchies that caused the massacre. Nine-year-old Émilienne deals with the disappearance of her teacher, while narrators both alive and dead recount the history of the protest through prose that brings culture and characters together in a probing investigation. WORLDLIT.ORG 67 Tadjamol and Darius Sadr, starts her story in Paris, at a doctor’s office where she is to get the test results for an in vitro fertilization . While waiting, she takes us, nonchronogically , to many places and moments in her recent and distant past. Her stories go all the way to the northern province of Mazandaran, to her great-grandfather, and to the birth of her grandmother, Nour, who plays an important role in Kimiâ’s destiny, even though the two never really meet. Growing up with parents who are intellectuals and forces of opposition to both the Pahlavi regime and the Islamic Republic , Kimiâ, who adores her father, and her sisters go through a lot. Kimiâ becomes a complex character, struggling with history...