Final Night by Buthaina Al-Nasiri: book review

Final Night: Short Stories (2002) by prolific Iraqi writer Buthaina Al-Nasiri, was purchased at the Tahrir Bookstore in Cairo, Egypt – where the author now lives. She was born in Baghdad.

Final Night is a collection of 16 stories with a diverse range of characters. She writes sometimes in first person and other times in third person, using both male and female narrators. 

Predominantly about the relationship between male and females, the stories explore themes such as: fraternal love, separation, reunion, letter-writing, children, material wealth, class, politics, work, emotional tension, expression of feelings, house and home, old age, and death.

My favourite story is “Why don’t we go more to the sea?” Written in the first person, the narrator is one of four brothers. Their mother drives them to the seaside for a day’s outing. Swimming in their underwear, splashing, collecting sea shells, and hearing the “grating sound of the shells in the paper bag” the narrator writes of sounds and smells of a time long gone: of a beautiful outing. It was the first time the boys had ever seen their mother smoke: “we had never once come across the traces of a cigarette in our home. But she was capable of hiding other things …” Listening to the car radio on the way home, singing, it was a time of family harmony and love.

Another favourite is “Daily Report” written in the first person by a male surveillance officer, three months before his retirement. The time is 1995, and he is instructed to conduct surveillance of a man living alone – Hameed Abdel Haqq – a man who has daily routines of jogging and walking. Abruptly the surveillance officer is told that his assignment has been terminated, a month before his retirement. He is not given another assignment and he is not sure whether the surveillance was lifted or whether he was replaced by another surveillance officer. Nevertheless, he had become used to observing Hameed, feeling as if he were part of his life. A week after retirement, missing Hameed, he returns to the surveillance location outside Hameed’s house. But this time, he does not hide. He walks down the street and comes eye-to-eye with Hameed Abdel Haqq.

“Man and Woman” is entertainingly written. “After midnight in the city, at the same time, a woman and a man were making their way through the fog-bound streets. Each one was in a separate part of the city, each unknown to the other.” It is a story of first the woman, and then the man; she is a sex worker and he is a taxi driver. On that night their lives converge when she gets into his taxi.

Then there are stories such as “The Man who made Changes” – “Death of the Sea God” – and “Omar’s Hen.”

Each story is brief, simplistic in their detail and beautiful in their narration, with a touch of humour, intrigue, mystery, and mellowness.