Mohktar, Hatef. The
Red Wrath: A Journey Between Two Destinies. Houston, Texas: Strategic Book
Publishing and Rights 07/31/2012. ISBN-10: 1618974599; ISBN-13:
978-1618974594. 474 (pp); $24.50
Asif lives in Oslo maintaining a
flat subsidized by the government and working hard at unskilled labor every
day. He meets, by chance, his old friend Akram from his village at home in
Afghanistan. Being with Akram and his family, Asif remembers and writes.
Before the Communist coup, in
1979, that brought in thousands of Soviet troops; the village of Shir Abad was
a place where Uzbeks, Pushtoons, Hazaras, and Tajiks lived as neighbors in
Muslim peace and mutual support. Asif and his friends and neighbors, both boys
and girls, attended school. Then, on Saturdays, they studied the Quran with the
Imaam. Children grew and played and learned and lived in families that honored
one another.
“In the pre-Soviet War era,
the society was unaware of the word ‘discrimination,’ Everyone no matter from
which caste, tribe, creed, race, color or gender was always welcomed with open
arms. People found support everywhere they went. But war and politics the two
carcinogenic ailments, had diseased the modern society.” Asif’s family lived
not only by the Muslim Quran, but also by the ancient Pashtoon law passed orally
from father to son.
He experienced his first
separations at the age of 13 when the Noor (light) of his heart, his
hummingbird, was married to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Her stepmother,
a divorcee from another village, created this handiwork. Latifa’s purity of
heart, soul, and body brought a high bride price from this rich man Qalandar.
Asif knew it was something Latifa’s own mother, who was like his aunt, would
never have allowed. Latifa, the child scholar, moved out of his life overnight
to another village where she was stepmother to children older than she.
Then Asif’s father, Zulfikar
Khan, stood in the mosque and spoke against the new regime saying “This is the
beginning of the end of Afghanistan as we know it.” His father moves his family
in the night to another village. Then came the tanks. Zulfikar taken away and
never seen again. The village bombed.
Men with machine guns killed men, women, and children indiscriminately.
Suddenly
Asif was responsible for the safety and welfare of his family. Separated from
his father; he now became separated from his village and friends as he took his
mother and younger brother and sister across the mountains to the refugee camps
in Pakistan. He struggles to earn enough to provide shelter, food, and
education for his brother.
“Born in Afghanistan,
Hatef Mokhtar, grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan and is now … the Editor in
Chief of the Oslo Times.” More intense than either The Kite Runner or A Thousand
Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini Mokhtar’s historical novel
carries not only the history of the last thirty years of Afghanistan, but the
cost to its people.
The rhythm of the words, phrases, and sentences carries the
languages of the people into English. “I believe separation is the beginning of a long metaphysical chain of
events that binds one spirit to another, connecting every corner of the world
and reaching places we cannot see because they are beyond the reach of the
living. We can only reach them when our imagination has taken over from where
our breath has left us.”
This is a book that is
written with tears and hope and the reader will read it the same way. This is
not casual reading material. The reader will be researching for the whole
story, but will actually get it all here, deeper than the facts. The use of
passive voice is inconvenient at first, but becomes necessary to maintain
emotional distance from Asif’s pain and anguish.
The following sites will
provide support and statistics for Mohktar’s emotional and intellectual analysis
of the cost of thirty years of war and separation written as historical
fiction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12011352http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12011352
I received a .pdf copy of this book from Readers Favorite for my unbiased review.
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