3 out of 4 stars
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Gates to Tangier is a fiction novel originally written by Mois Benarroch and translated by Sara Maria Hasbun.
The story revolves around a Moroccan family who was shocked upon learning that the father has an illegitimate son to their previous helper. This was known few days after the death of the death when the lawyer informed the family that the inheritance will only be given to them if this son is found. Otherwise, they will have to wait 5 years before they can access it. So the search for the long lost brother began with the four siblings Fortu (also known as Messod), Isaque, Silvia, and Alberto. The legal family actually consisted of six siblings but the youngest, Israel, died during the Lebanese war while Ruth cannot accompany as she is pregnant.
In the end, when the siblings reached the house of Fatima, their previous helper, they were told that their brother (Yusuf) died at 1 year old so they just let her sign a document confirming his death and went back to their place of residence which are now separate from each other.
In this book, the author presented each important characters through monologues. Though informative, the flow wasn’t that appealing. It only became more and more interesting when the personality of the brother began to unravel. It would have been better if the author focused on developing this side of the story. The plot seems disentangled in some way. There were also conversations after the monologues wherein it is unclear which among the characters are talking or if those conversations belong to any of the characters mentioned.
Nevertheless, the author was successful in raising certain issues. Aside from family dynamics, 2 themes were discussed in this book. One is the Arab/Muslim and Jewish relationship and the gender issue.
The Arab/Muslim-Jewish relationship history is very educational. Being foreign to this country and religion, I learned quite a lot by reading this novel. What fascinated me the most though is how the author injected the gender issue on this novel. It was indeed a surprising twist. What with these advances in medicine, good data and information storage, and faster communication across the world. Yet sadly, although we are in the modern world and more accepting than before, we cannot deny that religions and traditions still limit our capacity to accept an atypical person or situation. We still have biases and prejudices.
Though lacking in some technicalities, author discussed relevant points in this novel. I give this a rating of 3 out of 4 stars.
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Gates to Tangier
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