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I don’t know how many people will ever use this, but this novel - although written in English by Gurnah - contains numerous terms that may be unfamiliar to the western reader. I’ve written this little glossary to help explain these words (and also the characters), along with the first page of the book in which they’re referenced. This is for the hardcover edition with the burnt-orange colored cover. These are not spoilers unless for some perverse reason you read it from start to finish. The final entry is the only one I couldn’t figure out. —- ABDALLA (presumably “penis”) 7 ABDULRASAK (Yousuf’s “merchant in Herat”) 108 AFREETS (in Arabian mythology, powerful jinns) 112 AGA KHAN (a British-Indian Imam) 80 AJEMI (a bread from Zanzibar (?)) 104 ALHAMDULILLAHI RABI-L ALAMIN (praise God) 58 AMIN (“Amen” in Swahili) AMINA (Khalil’s sister) 204 Ten ANNA (1/16 rupee) coin 4 ASHA (Hamid’s child Yusuf befriended in Olmorog) 107 ASKARIS (soldiers or police officers) 169 ASLI (“original” in Swahili) 63 ASTAGHFIRULLAH (“I seek God’s forgiveness”) 95 Uncle AZIZ (a seyidd who took Youssef as rehani) 3 BA (short for baba, papa) 24 BACHUS (the truck driver for Yusuf’s journey) 53 BAGAMOYO (Yusuf’s father’s original landing) 14 BAFTA (long, narrow pieces of cotton) 109 BANYANS (Indian merchants in Southern Africa) 74 BATI (a young girl in Marungu, attracted to Yousuf) 167 BIRI (a cheap cigarette) 53 BISMILLAH (an invocation to Allah to begin a thing) 19 BOHRAS (Shia Muslims living in Western India) 74 BORAKH (“Buraq”, winged horse prophet rode) 95 BUIBUI (black cloth worn as a shawl) 36 BWANA (sir) 58 CHATU (a harsh Sultan in Marungu) 141 CHILDREN (3) (of Hamid and Maimuna) 69 — (ASHA (11/F), ALI (M), and SUDA (M)) 99 COMORO(s) (island nation of Mozambique) 60 COOLIE (an offensive term for an unskilled laborer) 79 DHOW (1-2 mast sailing ship) 14 as a DHUL QURNAIN (Iskander, slayer of (Ma(Gog)) 41 DUKA-WALLAH (“shopkeeper”) 80 Two EUROPEANS (at train station) 1 FAZA (sea landing in north of Kenya) 15 GANESH (elephant-headed God of beginnings) 81 GERMANS 7 GOG and MAGOG (two groups of Turks) 83 GUJARATI (from Gujarat state in India) 74 HAKIM (learned person) 38 HAMDANI (Arabic for “much praise) 222 HAMID SULEIMAN (man who owned inland shop) 63 HAMIDI MATANGA (a Swahili trader) 143 HARBANS SINGH (Kalasinga, the town mechanic) 74 HERAT (3rd-largest city in Afghanistan) 105 HIRIZI (arm amulet with a verse from the Koran) 198 HOTEL COOK 5 HUJAMBO BWANA WANGU (“how are you, sir?) 57 HUSSEIN (a store owner from Zanzibar in Olmorog) 82 IBLIS (leader of the devils in Islam) IDD (“EID” - a Muslim holiday involving feasting) 17 INDIAN storekeeper and family 6 ISHA (1 of 5 Islamic prayers, in the early evening) 103 JANAB (an Islamic title, “sir”) 53 JENNET AL ADN (“garden of Eden”) 80 JICHO (“the eye” - dhow that took father’s family) 15 JINN (an intelligent spirit of lower rank than an angel) JINNEYEH (“Jinniyah”, feminine form of “jinn”) 200 JUMA’A (Friday) 39 JUU KWA JUU (“top for top”) 189 KAABA (the center building of Mecca’s mosque) 207 KAFIR (an offensive term for a black African) 75 KAKANYAGA (the boatman to Chatu) 142 KALASINGA (Harbans Singh, the town mechanic) 74 KANIKI (Calico strands tied around the waist) 109 KANYENYE (a divided district of Sofala) KANZU (whitish robe, tunic) 17 KARIBU (welcome) 58 KASKAS (a tribal land of Turkish people (?) 106 KAWA (Youssef’s (fictional) home village) 5 KHALIL (Youssef’s young caretaker / employer) 21 KHALIL’S SISTER (Also taken by the Seyyid) 203? KHOIKHOI (S African/Namibian hunter-gatherer) 165 KIFA URONGO (“living death”) 22 KIGONGO (town on return trip) 76 KIJANA MZURI (“beautiful boy”) 52 KIKOI (traditional Swahili cloth) 58 KILIFI (port town in SE Kenya) 46 KILWA (home of father’s first wife, a bit inland) 14 KIMWANA (“darling”, “beloved”) 98 KIPANDE (a type of baseball-like game) 8 KIPUMBU WE (a derogatory term meaning “silly”) 25 KISIMAMAJONGOO (neighborhood errand boy) 36 KISIRANI (bad luck) 49 KISWAHILI (Swahili) 22 KIYAMA (doomsday) 29 LAHODA (captain of a dhow) 14 LAMU (small island in NE Kenya) 63 LUFITA LINDI (port in SE Tanzania) 46 MA AJUZA (an old customer, hits on Youssef) 30 MAFIA ISMAND (an island off of mid-Tanzania) 104 MAGENDO (“magic”, contraband in Swahili) 45 MAIMUNA (Hamid Suleiman’s wife) 63 MAKKA (“Mecca”) MALAI (clotted cream (used in Indian desserts)) 25 MALUUN (cursed / thrown out of society) 25 MANDAZI (fried bread, bofrot, or puff-puff) 19 MANYEMA (a powerful, warlike, Bantu tribe) 73 MAREHEMU (dead) 24 MAREKANI (the United States (?)) 119 MARIMBO (the island conduit to the fierce Chatu) 148 MARUNGU (mountain in Kenya, 140 km from sea) 73 MASHAALLAH (a wonder of God) 47 MASKINI (“very poor” in Swahili) 99 MDACHI (“m” + Dachi ( “German”)) 176 MECHANIC (Indian, trader with Hamid) 71 MFIPO (the chief of the Elders on Chatu’s island) 153 MGANGA (traditional medicine man) 38 MIKOKONI (coastal town in far SE of Kenya) 202 MIRAJ (the night the prophet ascended to Heaven) 95 The MISTRESS (Kisirani?, lives inside the shop) 37 MKALIKALI (town on return trip, N of large river) 176 MKATA (a village in East-central Tanzania) 121 MNYAPARA WA SAFARI (Foreman of the Journey) 34 MOFA (a pancake-like bread) 25 MOGUL (an Indian Muslim from a power group) 80 MOHAMMED (Aziz’s shopkeeper before Khalil) 202 MOHAMMED ABDALLA (the Mnyapara wa Safari) 34 MOHUN SIDHWA (Kilimanjaro train station master) 57 MOMBASA (port city in SE Kenya) 63 MOROGORO (inland city in eastern Tanzania) 110 MPWELI (a town on return trip, close to the coast) 177 MRIMA (name for mainland facing Zanzibar) 46 MTOTO WA SHETANI (“child of the devil”) 183 MTWARA (sea landing in south of Tanzania) 14 MUKKI-YUKKI (Mukki is a village in India) 74 MUKKI (Indian money lender?) 46 MUSLIN (a delicate cotton cloth from Mosul, Iraq) 109 MZEE HAMDANI (the old gardener) 36 MZUNGU (a European government employee) 78 NABI NUH (prophet Noah) 81 NEEMS (Indian iliac, nimtrees, mahogany family) 20 NYIKA (“bush”, “hinterland”) 71 NYUNDO (Mwene’s chief “courtier” on a journey) 118 OLD MEN ON THE TERRACE (3) 32 OLMOROG (government station ½ up mountain) 81 PEMBA (island off Tanzania, N of Zanzibar) 201 PEMBE (the spirit of the island shrine) 147 POMBE (an African beer made from millet) 75 PRIMUS (a small cooker that burns paraffin) 103 QADHI (magistrate in a Sharia court) 242 QASIDAS (odes) 36 RAJAB (seventh month of Islamic calendar) 100 REHANI (a secured loan) 47 silver RUPEE (16 Annas, Yusuf stole from father) 11 RUMI (a 13th-century Persian poet (?)) 103 SAID (Sultan of the Omanis in times past) 130 SALAAM ALAIKAM (“peace unto you”) 77 SARUNI (soap) 40 SEYIDD (a Muslim of high stature) 20 SHAABAN (8th month of the Islamic calendar) 73 SHABAB (youth) 39 SHAMS (“Sham?”, Syria (?)) 104 SHEBE (former old slave of Zulekha (deceased)) 221 SHUKA (a sash worn in parts of Africa) 82 SIKUFANYIENI MASKHARA (“Dead to the world?) 105 SIMBA MWENE (Mohammed Abdalla’s overseer) 109 SIMI (a knife or sword favored by the jKikuyu) 126 SLEEPING PORTER KILLED BY HYENA (124) SOFALA (formerly the chief port in Mozambique) 130 SUFI (“msufi” - deciduous, flowering tree) 20 SURA (one of 114 “chapters” in the Koran) 95 TAJIRI MKUBWA (rich, big businessman) 5 TAYARI (a city in SE Kenya, cut into ten towns) 130 THIRD STORE (containing contraband) 70 UDI (aloe wood, a perfume from Zanzibar) 37 UNGUJA (largest, most-populated Zanzibar island) 83 USUMBARA HIGHLANDS (north of Kawa) 7 VIBARUA (day laborers for Germans et al)) 6 VIPUSA (“rhino horns”) 189 VUMBA (or FUMBA?) Malina’s childhood town 228 MFIPO (Chatu’s village elder chief on Marungu) 153 WAH (great) 53 WALLAHI (word of oath) 60 WALII (benefactor, guardian) 243 WAUNGWANA (“people of honor”) 99 WANYAMWEZI (Bantu group from Tanzania) 33 WASHENZI (savages who worship demons) 6 WASOMALI (Somali) 33 WAUNGWANA (a cultured freeborn, or patrician) 20 WITU (coastal-ish town in middle Kenya) 51 WOMAN KILLED BY CROCODILE 122 YALLA (“let’s go”, “come quickly”) 98 “YA SIN” (36th sura in the Koran) YUSUF 1 Yusuf’s PARENTS 2 ZANZIBAR (island in north of Tanzania, by Kenya) 14 ZUB (“penis”) 53 ZULEKHA (Aziz’s (first) wife, flirts with Yusef) 217 ZULEKHA’S 1ST HUSBAND 221 ZUMA (some sort of derogatory nickname?) 25 ZUWARDE (I haven’t found the translation) 182 -
"Red Sorghum" is one of the more challenging novels I've ever read. This was 2012 Nobel Laureate Mo Yan's first novel, and remains his most famous - it was made into a film, also called "Red Sorghum," in 1987. As with so many other great works of literature, I'm saying to myself right now, 'There's no way this could be made into a film without losing much of its "guts"' - there's just too much that goes on inside of peoples' heads for it to be conveyed on the big screen. Oh, the story can be told, but not in anything remotely resembling the strange and mysterious narrative penned by Yan. It doesn't even matter if I tell you what the book is about: "Red Sorghum" is narrated by a descendant of a family of sorghum winemakers, and he jumps back-and-forth through time (the duration of the story is about fifty years, from the early 1920s until the 1970s, passing through the Great Leap Forward (perhaps the deadliest event in human history), and ending with the Cultural Revolution), telling the strange and fascinating history of his family, and the hard times and misery they endure, with the red sorghum itself being the only thing (other than the narrator) which links together the tale. Also, don't assume you'll pick up any snippets of real-life history by reading this; you won't. So, even though I just told you what the novel is about, it doesn't make one iota of difference - it's the type of book you *must* read to understand, and it is extremely difficult to get through. It isn't the language that's difficult; it's keeping up with the numerous characters, and adapting to sudden shifts in time (without being told you've shifted in time). I've read tougher books in my life, but probably less than a dozen (and I've read some pretty darned tough books). I highly recommend "Red Sorghum," but it sure isn't for everybody - you have to *want* this novel, and steel yourself for some very complicated and confusing literature. I got to the point where, for the final two-thirds of the book, I was taking notes on the pages - titling every single page with the gist of what happened on it; otherwise, it would have been impossible for me to refer back and find something I needed to find. Is this Nobel-worthy literature? Yes. I understand the Nobel is a lifetime-achievement award, but this is a worthy component of Yan's oeuvre that contributes fully to him winning the Nobel. Writing long-form literature this complex is a skill that I could never possess, so it's difficult for me to even comprehend how someone could write something such as this - it must have taken him forever-and-a-day, and I suspect the reason this was Yan's first novel (at age 31) was that he had spent the past decade thinking about it. My guess is that it's very unlikely that any of our members have read this, but if anyone is out there (even just lurking) who has, I would love to discuss aspects of this novel with you - I read it without any help, and as I post this, I have still yet to read any reviews or critiques of "Red Sorghum." I look forward to doing so, so that I can figure out exactly what in the hell I've spent the past six months reading. Also, don't do what I did (pick the book up only occasionally) - this is a novel that needs to be read continuously; not sporadically. I am *so glad* I decided to take notes (I even bought a second book several months ago, so I could have a new one once I was finished defacing the one I read).
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This is one of the few novels it took me over an entire year to read, and one of the few that I can say made me a better person for having done so. "The Bridge on the Drina"� is a rough-going, 300+ page book that spans almost 350 years, and therefore can't be threaded together by "traditional"� methods - the "rock,"� quite literally, that bonds this tale is the bridge itself, the Mehmed PaÅ¡a Sokolović Bridge (a UNESCO World Heritage site - there are 981 on Earth), spanning the Drina River, the Drina running northwardly through Bosnia and Herzegovina, connecting with the Rzav, and then flowing into the "Beautiful Blue"� Danube - the second longest river in Europe after the Volga. But these geographical facts are pedagogical, as nearly the entire story takes place right in the town that houses the bridge, ViÅ¡egrad - a town that will feel like your second home when you're finished the book. At times brutal (there is one chapter in particular that may upset you for the rest of your life), at times beautiful (the lovely Fatah hurling herself from the bridge, rather than facing forced marriage to a man she didn't love), this book is perhaps the definitive way to "get to know"� the cultural history of the Balkans - the point at which World War One officially started via the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, and ended up killing over 9 million people - while technically considered fiction, the novel is very much based on fact. Why did I select such a difficult project to tackle? Because I'm an idiot, that's why. Because I knew relatively little about Balkan history, because Andrić won the Nobel Prize for Literature in the year I was born, and because this book is considered the singular reason he won: it's his magnum opus. Despite the rather superficial reason I chose it, I am a better person - a better human being - for having read this book. Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together for centuries in relative harmony - how appealing that was for me. They are building a town-within-a-town - Andrićgrad - near the foot of the bridge, slated to be completed next year - and, they are talking about making the book into a movie. If they finish the town, and perhaps even if they don't, I want to go there, to pay my homage, and to look at this undoubtedly tiny bridge which served such an incredibly large part of the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I would be interested in discussing even the tiniest, seemingly most unimportant aspect of this - or any - book, with anyone who is interested (and I can say the same about any book, film, song, or whatever other medium I might have experienced) - I'm happiest going deep into the depths, and hearing new theories and possibilities about *why* someone might have done what they did. If you want superficial conversation, you won't find it here - I want content, substance, and depth to be our driving forces. Hint: I'm currently reading William Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," Alice Munro's "Runaway,"� and will soon be starting Oscar Wilde's "The Important of Being Ernest."� Bring it, my friends! I want your best in this forum! I want to be challenged, dammit! And if it's a book, poem, essay, play - anything - that you're reading and wild about, post about it. I'll read it, and I'll discuss it with you. Just please don't make it that odious symbol of every middle aged woman in America trapped in a lonely marriage, "Fifty Shades of Gray"� which I've now had presented to me, in various forms, about ten times, as an apotheosis of cutting-edge literature. Please. Meet a friend for a drink, see a counselor, get divorced, do *anything* but *please* don't post here about it expecting serious discussion (*). If you want to post about Gilbert Gottfried's readings of it, that's fine. If you're one of "them,"� please, start reading heavy, and I mean *really* heavy. Coetzee's "Disgrace,"� Saramago's "The Cave,"� Pamuk's "My Name Is Red," or hell, Bryson's "A Walk In The Woods"� or Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley"� if you want to declench with some NPR-level laughs or escapism, respectively. I also don't mind listening to, and analyzing a 4-minute long pop song, or even a two-hour movie, or a one-hour art exhibit, but literature is different: I simply can't invest a month into a NY Times Bestseller which is going to be just awful and a complete waste of my time - my life is worth more than this. I've done it several times before, mainly when the books were gifts from friends (I read them out of respect for my friends), but I don't want to do it anymore. Oh, God it's a waste of life. (*) I'm kidding. And I guarantee *hundreds* of our readers have read it, and probably liked it. Post away - I don't want this forum to be snobby.
