Beyond Babylon
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"In this polyphonic novel of the Afro-Italian experience, Zuhra and Mar, two young women struggling to feel that they belong in Italy, look for the textures of life 'in the spaces between the Ferraris' . . . As Scego's book explores layers of time and branches of families, it suggests that no history is ever as certain as it seems at first glance." -- New Yorker
"Though ten years have passed since the novel's original publication in Italy, its wider political nuances don't feel any less urgent. The swing to right-wing governments, the reassertion of national borders and the xenophobic fear of refugees and migrants are never far from its centre. Beyond Babylon ultimately succeeds in rendering these on a human level." -- Times Literary Supplement
"Vibrant and heartrending . . . This powerful tale winningly portrays the path from pain to recovery and wholeness." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Sweeping and bold . . . In portraying the inner lives of refugee women and their first-generation, immigrant daughters, Scego has created a work of great empathy that is a testament to the psychological dissonance that refugees suffer as they remake lives in foreign places while under the pervasive shadow of brutal pasts." -- On the Seawall
"[Beyond Babylon] grows out of novels like Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia, Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Danzy Senna's Caucasia urban, coming-of-age novels written by young writers growing up with double perspectives, with the challenge of constructing a hybrid identity." -- from Jhumpa Lahiri's introduction
"One of the book's many feats is to illustrate how violence and prejudice in one place connect to those in another. We are therefore fortunate that Aaron Robertson has rendered this vast, powerful novel in accessible, fluid English. After having completed BeyondBabylon, anglophone readers will see, perhaps to their surprise, how connected we are to the world Scego describes... Scego's writing reveals her investment in representing the effects that migration, poverty, racism, sexism, colonialism, and antisemitism have on very different individuals."-- Public Books
"What a wonderful, shocking, heartbreaking, exciting book, and how better to tell this story than through Aaron Robertson's entrancing and pitch-perfect translation." -- Jennifer Croft, Man Booker International Prize-winning translator and author
"Igiaba Scego is one of the most prominent voices of a new cohort of black writers in Italy." -- Africa Is a Country
"Beyond Babylon is an illuminating, courageous novel in which the word becomes flesh and the writing mimics the melodic, syncopated rhythms of jazz, Bossa nova, Somali hello, and salsa. It is a densely woven tapestry in which language is no longer a barrier. High Italian and slang are deftly interspersed with Somali, Spanish, Arabic, and English. A variation on the theme of dictatorship, to quote the illustrious Nuruddin Farah, the book is a fistfight between memory and the redeeming power of words. In the words of the five protagonists, colors and genres blend to reveal the consequences of violence and oppression on the bodies of men and women alike." -- Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, author of Little Mother
