"Arabic literature" and "guilty pleasure" are two phrases not often paired in English, at least not since translations of One Thousand and One Nights took Victorian England by heart-fluttering, red-cheeked storm. But a new imprint from the American University in Cairo Press, Hoopoe, is looking to change that.
One of the first books issued, Abdelilah Hamdouchi's Whitefly needn't be blush-inducing. But it is decidedly a pleasure.
On its face, the book is a traditional detective story. Four bodies wash up on a Tangiers beach, and Detective Laafrit of the city’s Criminal Investigations Unit must unravel who they are, why they died, and who – if anyone – is to blame.
Much about Whitefly is the stuff of classic detective writing: Laafrit is a grizzled but likeable department veteran who's stuck amid less-than-brilliant colleagues.
He travels down numerous dead-ends, which are filled with beautiful women, a gun-toting drug lord and small-time criminal informants.
But this is also contemporary Morocco, so CSI Tangiers it ain’t. The forensic scientist who appears at the beach doesn’t even want to touch a dead body, much less examine it. “No need to dirty your hands,” he tells Laafrit.
And forget ballistics reports or DNA. Nobody even seems to take a fingerprint. The information gleaned from the autopsy is what the victims had for a last meal, and this comes only after a special request from Laafrit, whose nickname is translated as “Crafty”.
Whitefly does give us a sense of late-20th century Tangiers. In this, Hamdouchi's novel follows in the tradition of Matt Rees's Omar Youssef novels or Yasmina Khadra's Inspector Llob series, but without the tough social criticism.
It starts by throwing us in the deep end of contemporary Moroccan policing. In the opening scene, every officer in the city has been called out to keep two demonstrations apart: the first protest is staged by unemployed college graduates, and the second by non-graduates. “Hidden hands” are bringing them together, Laafrit says, and a violent clash between police and demonstrators seems inevitable.
But Laafrit manages to defuse the graduates’ demonstration by playing on their hopes and fears. We hear little about the protesters after that, but this opening underlines the tense atmosphere in the city.
It also tells us why many Moroccans would choose to “hrig”, or head to Spain in rickety, illegal boats.
Most of the department thinks that’s why three of the four victims died – they were fleeing to Spain. Only Laafrit is not satisfied with rubber-stamping them as drowned migrants.
By and large, Whitefly takes the part of the educated, secular, middle-class Moroccan detective.
We see the world not as it appears to a protestor, a criminal or a migrant, but alongside Laafrit.
Still, he is not one-sided: he and his wife were anti-regime in their university days, when his wife was arrested and tortured. We read intimate details of her sexual torture and ensuing self-hate, but then her painful section wraps up quickly and tidily when we’re told, “Fate smiled on her, and indeed everything changed once she had [her daughter] Reem”.
Outside of this, we never see police torture first-hand. Laafrit does threaten a roomful of noisy children who are throwing stones, but the scene is played for a laugh.
The book never forces its disparate elements to engage one another: Laafrit’s policing work, his wife’s brokenness, the angry unemployed, his colleagues’ incompetence and organised crime. Instead, the novel takes a sudden and intriguing turn and heads in a different direction entirely.
The plotting is tight and watching the story’s resolution unfold is a delight. It doesn’t end neatly, like a Hercule Poirot novel might. But that’s all right: we didn’t really expect that the Tangiers policing system would be able to wrap up the case.
The reader understands the outlines of what happened, and that’s enough.
Jonathan Smolin’s English translation is readable, but occasionally clunks, hewing too closely to the Arabic instead of crafting a separate, colloquial English.
Hamdouchi’s book also has missed opportunities – it fails to push on Laafrit’s relationship with his wife or on the reality of torture and corruption inside the Moroccan policing system. But as a guilty-pleasure read, it is a winner.
M Lynx Qualey is a freelance writer based in Cairo who blogs at arablit.wordpress.com.
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Profile of Hala Insurance
Date Started: September 2018
Founders: Walid and Karim Dib
Based: Abu Dhabi
Employees: Nine
Amount raised: $1.2 million
Funders: Oman Technology Fund, AB Accelerator, 500 Startups, private backers
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Afcon 2019
SEMI-FINALS
Senegal v Tunisia, 8pm
Algeria v Nigeria, 11pm
Matches are live on BeIN Sports
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
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Pakistan v New Zealand Test series
Pakistan: Sarfraz (c), Hafeez, Imam, Azhar, Sohail, Shafiq, Azam, Saad, Yasir, Asif, Abbas, Hassan, Afridi, Ashraf, Hamza
New Zealand: Williamson (c), Blundell, Boult, De Grandhomme, Henry, Latham, Nicholls, Ajaz, Raval, Sodhi, Somerville, Southee, Taylor, Wagner
Umpires: Bruce Oxerford (AUS) and Ian Gould (ENG); TV umpire: Paul Reiffel (AUS); Match referee: David Boon (AUS)
Tickets and schedule: Entry is free for all spectators. Gates open at 9am. Play commences at 10am
A Dog's Journey
Directed by: Gail Mancuso
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Josh Gad, Marg Helgenberger, Betty Gilpin, Kathryn Prescott
3 out of 5 stars