Books In Brief

Return to Damascene Home Nets a Memoir of Change

The House on Arnus Square by Samar Attar, Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata Press, 1998, 163 pp.

Returning to her childhood home after an absence of 20 years, Samar Attar relives her past while she confronts the daily kaleidoscope of changes that swirl around her. Her juxtaposed observations of past and present form a three-dimensional picture that is private and specific while reflecting the political and sociological changes that have gradually taken effect.

The result is captivating, snaring the reader with a complex scenario written in a masterfully-structured style that is intimate, cogent and poetic. The protagonist and writer is in fact a recognized poet, anthologized in the U.S., Canada and England. Born in Damascus, she went on to receive a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the State University of New York, Binghamton. She has published widely in the field of literary criticism and creative writing, and is currently teaching in Australia, where "The House on Arnus Square" was previously published in Arabic ("Al Bayt Fi Sahat ‘Arnus").

The "House" serves as the setting and symbol of Attar’s return journey. It is the setting from which she observes, records and reflects not only on the personal landscape, but on the technological changes impacting every aspect of daily life, from how laundry was done to how chickens were butchered.

Born to the daughter of a feudal era aristocrat, the chronicle of the house began when her upper-class family moved to the city and built a modern Damascus house–without the traditional garden, but with a balcony overlooking a bustling, typical city street scene, a balcony that Attar likened to her seat on the daily theater of street life.

The aristocracy of her mother’s time is gone, and Attar must come to terms with the impact that the modern city has had on the world and the people of her childhood, as well as how she has been shaped by the house itself. Her account demonstrates again how the voice of Arab women writers continues to emerge, animating the cold chronologies of history, richly filling out the story of human experience, and contributing a stereotype-shattering richness to the growing body of literature about life in the Arab world.

This article appeared in Al Jadid Vol. 5, No. 27 (Spring 1999)
Copyright © 1999 by Al Jadid