Novel
They Die Strangers
يموتون غرباء
Mohammad Abdul-Wali · 1971
Synopsis
In Addis Ababa, Abdou Saïd, a Yemeni, keeps a small shop. Thrifty to the extreme, he sends his money to Yemen, where he has long wished to return; a pious Muslim, he nonetheless carries on affairs outside marriage. Through him, the short novel depicts the existence of Yemeni emigrants in Ethiopia, made of exile, loneliness and nostalgia for the native land.
Context
Published in 1971, the short novel was translated into English by Abubaker Bagader and Deborah Akers and published in 2001 by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, with stories by the author, under the title They Die Strangers; it was his first book in English. Shelagh Weir's introduction credits him with having renewed Yemeni literature by writing about ordinary people, and Silvia Chelala, in Al Jadid, judges his work very autobiographical.
Who it is for
For reading a forerunner of modern Yemeni literature, on emigration to the Horn of Africa.
Prizes and reception
The writer Abdulaziz al-Maqalih called him the Chekhov of Yemen; Silvia Chelala praises a transparent and accessible style.