95. I Think of You by Ahdaf Soueif (Fiction, Short Story Collection) 182 p.

World Lit Challenge: Egypt

I Think of You is a collection of nine short stories by Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif. I’d heard good things about one of her novels, The Map of Love, so I bought this collection to see if I liked her writing. I do. I’m not sure that the short story is her ideal medium, although that could be my own preferences at work.

I like my short stories to be reasonably complete and contained, while Soueif’s stories are fleeting slices of life. She offers brief glimpses into other lives, other worlds, but never gives the reader all the information about the situations in which her narrators find themselves. This isn’t a fault, but it means that she’ll never be one of my very favourite short story writers.

All Soueif’s protagonists are women: a child with nightmares, a Muslim teenager trying to fit in at a school in England in the 1960’s, a woman returning to her former husband’s home. Failed marriages, failed love affairs; I Think of You is a book of love stories only in the broadest sense. The best word for the emotional tone linking the stories is “melancholy”. I enjoyed all of the stories; the only one I was ambivalent about was Melody, which features a strangely emotionless narrator, but even still, it was well-written and had some very good stuff in it.

Books read: 95/100 (95%)
Pages read: 28,505/30,000 (95%)

Besides being the author of The Map of Love, Soueif is also the translator of Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah, which is likewise on my TBR shelf. I’ve never read anything translated by an author whose fiction I’ve read, but Soueif’s light, clear prose makes me look forward to the experience.

Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Ahdaf Soueif, World Lit Challenge