A Sky So Close: A Novel [Paperback]

Betool Khedairi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2002

In this elegant, incisive debut, a young girl comes of age while aching for a sense of belonging. Daughter of an Iraqi father and an English mother, the unnamed narrator struggles with isolation both in the traditional Iraqi countryside where she’s raised and at the Western school of music and ballet that her mother insists she attend. Though she finds some semblance of solace in dance, her trials increase when her family moves to Baghdad. Then comes the outbreak of war, which compels her to move with her mother to England, where her most pointed heartaches await. Gently poetic but emotionally unflinching, A Sky So Close is a daringly fresh look into the clash between East and West and into the soul of a woman formed by two cultures yet fully accepted by neither.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A young woman comes of age in modern Iraq in this lyrical debut. The unnamed narrator recalls her early childhood on a farm in the small village of Zafraniya, outside of Baghdad. It is a mostly peaceful time in the country: the narrator attends the School of Music and Ballet in the mornings and her afternoons are spent playing among apricot trees. From the age of six, however, the conflicting values of East and West begin to disrupt her idyllic life. Her father, who works devising food flavorings and colors, is Iraqi; her mother is English and is not managing to adapt to the heat, the customs or her isolation. They argue constantly, and the narrator is aware that many see her as "the foreign woman's daughter." She is much closer to her father, who interests her in his work as she grows into adolescence. The family moves to Baghdad and the war with Iran begins soon after. Viewed mostly through the increasing changes in daily life rationing, travel restrictions and the dance school's closing the effects of war are juxtaposed against the girl's exposure to the beleaguered artistic community in Baghdad and her first love affair. The third section of the book shifts to England, where she travels with her ailing mother just as the Gulf War erupts. Khedairi writes with a certain distance and passivity that can be frustrating, but lovers of literary fiction will be pulled in by the poetic descriptions. Despite the aloofness of the narration, this quietly compelling story rings true.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

The overriding theme of this coming-of-age story is conflict between the young narrator's Iraqi father and her British mother, between her homeland, Iraq, and neighboring Iran, even between the novel's characters and their own bodies. While details bind the novel tightly to its geography, the infrequency with which the narrator's name is used (she is called "the girl" by her parents, "little one" by her first lover, and "my friend" by her dance teacher) makes the alienation and dissonance she experiences feel timeless and universal. However, the narrator rarely reflects on these conflicts and her place in them; she merely reports them. When she makes an instant decision to leave her homeland to accompany her ill mother to London, for example, even though she's in love and apparently at home in Iraq, she does not convey the thoughts behind her decision. Consequently, this first novel does not encourage empathy for the characters or convey the richness of culture that Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love (LJ 11/15/00) does, despite a similar theme. But librarians should be on the alert for the next novel by this author. For literary fiction collections or where there is a strong interest in fiction with Middle Eastern settings. Cheryl Van Til, Kent Dist. Lib., Spencer Branch, Gowen, MI
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (May 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385720785
• ISBN-13: 978-0385720786
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worthy and timely novel by Iraqi first time author, December 15, 2003

By 

H. Jones - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Sky So Close: A Novel (Paperback)

"A Sky So Close" is many things at once: a girl's coming-of-age story, an elegy to dead parents, a historical chronicle of life in war-torn Iraq, and a meditation on cross-cultural relationships in an increasingly complicated world. The unnamed narrator writes the novel as a kind of cathartic journal with her dead Iraqi father as the "you" she often refers to explicitly as her ideal reader. Her British mother is also central to this coming-of-age tale, as is her parents sad, failed, cross-cultural marriage.

Despite a few instances of forced/unconvincing dialogue (this might be the translator's fault), I generally found Khedairi's novel touching and engaging. It also has the added value of being an insider's look at Iraq, a country that is much in American/European news these days. The novel avoids explicit politics, but certainly the politics of gender and war permeate the story in any case, even though the narrator's very conscious disengagement helps her avoid clear political pronouncements.

The strength of the novel surely rests in the little details the girl notices about life in rural Iraq in the 70s and 80s, and in the portrayal of her warm relationship with her father. I remember hearing that cross-cultural experts often say that a single novel is better than reading ten non-fiction books about a place, if you really want to get to know it, and Khedairi's book would seem to foot that bill well. One quibble I have with this aspect, though, is that the narrator's extended family is strangely absent from the entire novel. Her Iraqi father has moved back to his home country with his British wife and child, but not a single relative figures in their lives at all? The same is true of her mother's non-existent English relatives when she moves to London with her late in the book. I think Khedairi does this to highlight the sense of isolation in the post-modern, post-colonial world, but I found this one aspect ill-conceived.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Life in Iraq, July 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A Sky So Close: A Novel (Hardcover)

Born of an Iraqi father and an English mother, the narrator grows up in an atmosphere of discord and dis-ease, never fully belonging to either culture. Joys that she experiences end tragically. Peaceful afternoons spent with her father stop with his untimely death. Her lover goes to war. People die, victims of custom and superstition as much as disease. And finally, she leaves the scenes of destruction in war-torn Iraq for more deaths in London. Horror is piled upon horror, but the narrator remains anonymous, detached from the reader. This novel is a disturbing look at life in a country with which few of its readers may be familiar.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A series of insights on contemporary Iraq, September 12, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sky So Close: A Novel (Hardcover)

This story of a girl growing up in wartime Iraq sparked controversy when it was published in the Middle East: now English readers have a chance to experience Betool Khedairi's A Sky So Close, a coming of age story of an Iraqi childhood. The result is a series of insights on contemporary Iraq which no history coverage could hope to match for depth.