A Thousand Farewells

This is a review of A Thousand Farewells by Nahlah Ayed for a journalism assignment.

Nahlah Ayed was born in Winnipeg to Palestinian parents. When she was about six, her family moved to Jordan to live in a refugee camp. Ayed was forced to wear a hijab, wasn’t allowed to play outside, and had no privacy. Her father moved back to Canada to work. After “seven soul crushing years,” Ayed returned to Winnipeg for high school, then she went to school for journalism. Later in life, Ayed became a war reporter.  

What works in this book?

I thought that Ayed’s descriptions of Sunni and Shia and their relations was one of the most compelling parts of the book.  I’ve done a lot of reading about Islam, but Ayed’s take on it wasn’t about what people believe, but how they are affected by it.

An example of this is the story of Mona and Thafer. (Their religion was not revealed for privacy reasons.)  After the fall of the regime, Thafer’s store was robbed, and his daughter was kidnapped. As ransom, the kidnappers told Thafer to get his daughter back, he would have to convert. The family left Iraq without their daughter. She was beaten to death in Baghdad.

Ayed’s descriptions made the book an easy read. Her opening explanation of tension in Egypt drew me in right away.

“The white-clad, neatly uniformed policemen fanned out around the green lawn of the traffic circle, their eyes narrowed and spines stiffened by the presence of the riot police standing at the ready some distance away.”

After reading this next part, I put the book down and didn’t touch it again for two days.

“A hysterical man stopped us, desperate for help. Someone—a friend, a brother, a father—was severely injured, lying on the side of the road, splattered with blood. ‘Give us a ride,’ the upright man pleaded, ‘to the hospital.’ It was already an enormous risk to be out at all. Ammar hesitantly drove on, all of us silently guilty.”

It was hard to read—it seems like betrayal, even though they didn’t know him. It’s brutal and I hated Ayed for the next twenty pages, but stories like this make the book powerful. It shows the desperation of the situation.

Would I risk my life if I was in her situation? (I have no idea.)

One of the most horrifying, and simultaneously captivating parts of the book was her description of the excavation  mass graves.

“Plastic bags kept together the individual skulls, femurs, and spinal columns, as well as bits of tattered clothing, wallets, and yellowed ID cards. Sometimes there were leather belts or lengths of rope, apparently used to bind wrists or ankles. Some of the skulls still wore blindfolds.” 

What doesn’t work?

Always.

“—always tucked in its hard brown leather case, but always at the ready for those spontaneous shots of grinning kids.” (Her father’s camera.)

Ayed uses always about 102 times in the book.  Yes, there are times when things are absolute, sure, but it made me take her writing less seriously.

Sometimes Ayed makes generalizations that I wasn’t a huge fan of. In Al-Wihdat she writes “Gossip, naturally was the camp’s favourite pastime.”

What is missing from A Thousand Farewells?

Ayed doesn’t often get vulnerable with the reader. When her father leaves, she admits it was devastating, but then she leaves it at that. Ayed could have written more about how war and constant work made her feel. I felt like I was moving along with her in life, yet I didn’t get to know her well. Since she is a journalist, her instinct might have been to leave herself out of it.

The book is great without them, but I think a few photographs might have been a nice touch.  

What can journalists learn from this book?

This quote summarizes it nicely.

“People are not quotes or clips, used to illustrate stories about war and conflict. People are the story. Always.”

There’s that word again, but I like what she’s saying. When working in journalism it’s easy to get wrapped up in trying to find the perfect quotes or descriptive details.  

Don’t do that. Connect, and treat people like people, not objects.

How does it compare to another non-fiction work in any medium?

A Thousand Farewells reminded me of the book Growing Up bin Laden, by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson. The people in both books move from Kandahar to Syria.

In Growing Up, Omar, Osama’s son talks about their family home, and the changes he saw in his father as his behavior became extreme.In A Thousand Farewells, Ayed recalls driving past the bin Laden family home.

Growing Up shows Osama bin Laden as a father and a husband (to multiple women,) idealized and loved. Ayed’s book describes bin Laden’s violent campaigns, but she too shows that he was a loved man. 

There were regular demonstrations  near the journalist’s hotel by people who adored him. A shop owner even showed Ayed a carpet with a picture of bin Laden’s face, and an airplane about to hit the Twin Towers.    

How did reading the book affect you?

Before CreComm, I went to the University of Winnipeg for International Development Studies. During my time there, I was faced with the reality that global conflict is huge and overwhelming.

This book was a painful reminder of that.

I guess there’s parts that serve as inspiration—maybe if you tell a story well enough, people will pay attention and take action.