The Kindness of Enemies by Leila Aboulela: book review

The Kindness of Enemies (2015) is set across two different time scales in two different lands: 2010-2011 in Scotland, and 1839-1859 in the Caucasus.

Natasha Wilson, formerly Hussein, feels like a half-human half-mythical animal, the centaur – an entity that merges two completely different beings. Her mother is Georgian from Tbilisi and orthodox, and her father is Sudanese from Khartoum and Muslim. When Natasha was a young child, her mother re-marrried a Scottish man, Tony Wilson, and they moved to Scotland.

She is a history professor in a Scottish university, researching the 19th century Muslim leader, Imam Shamil, who led the anti-Russian resistance in the Caucasian War. Her student, Osama (Oz) Raja, and his actress mother Malak, are descendents of Shamil, and the owners of his precious sword. Natasha wants to see this sword – and that’s when Natasha’s research takes an interesting turn.

The police raid Oz’s home and he is arrested for radicalism. Natasha was visiting Malak and Oz at the time, so the police also confiscate Natasha’s computer – she too is under suspicion: ‘Every stepped climbed, every achievement, every recognition – all that hard work – had not taken me far enough, not truly redeemed me, not landed me on the safest shore.’

This is the account of Natasha defending herself and her Muslim heritage, the confusion she feels for her star and charismatic student Oz Raja, and her admiration for the bravery of the historical Iman Shamil in her research. Just like the centaur, she questions where the historical fight for one’s country ends and the radicalization of Oz begins?

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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