Mexico – EWANA Center

Salwā Bakr’s (1949-, Egypt) – Kūkū Sūdān Kabāshī (‘Kuku Sudan Kabashi’, 2004). When a young Mexican travelling to Egypt in search for his roots tells the lawyer Khālidah about Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers who fought for Napoleon III in Mexico, Khālidah starts her own investigation into the topic. Her attention is drawn to the story of a Sudanese soldier by the name of Kūkū Sūdān Kabāshī, who received several war decorations in France after he was deployed by Egypt as part of their contribution to the Napoleon III’s 1863 invasion of Mexico (also in H: Historical Novels: Historical Novels on Slavery).

Layla Lalami (1968-, Morocco) – The Moor’s Account (2014). Written in English and set in the sixteenth century, this novel narrates the story of a Moroccan slave who was shipped to the New World as part of the Naváez expedition of 1527 and was one of the four survivors to reach Mexico City in 1536. These four survivors crossed through Latin America encountering different tribes. Among others, the novel won the 2015 American Book Award (also in H: Historical Novels: Historical Novels on Slavery).

Mouloud Mammeri’s (1917 – 1989, Algeria) play Le Banquet (‘The banquet’, 1972) shines light on the destruction and disappearance of the Mexican Aztec civilization at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors, specifically Cortes and his 400 men, from the year 1519 to 1521. The author links the death of the Aztec to that of other peoples in more contemporary times.

Muḥammad Mansī Qandīl (1949-, Egypt) – Katībah Sūdāʾ (‘The black brigade’, 2015). This novel is set between 1863 and 1867, when a battalion of hundreds of black slave fighters from Egypt and Sudan were sent to Mexico to fight for the French emperor Napoleon III in quenching the Mexican popular revolution against their European oppressors (reference). The alliance of the battalion and other European soldiers was eventually forced to retreat, and the destiny of many of the slave fighters remains unknown. Qandīl gives the unknown soldiers a voice and a story (also in H: Historical novels: Historical novels on Slavery and 1800 – 1920: Ottoman Period).

Iymān Yaḥyā (1954-, Egypt) – Al-Zawjah al-Maksīkiyyah (‘The Mexican wife’, 2018). This novel is a retelling of the brief marriage between one of Egypt’s most prolific writers, Yusūf Idīs, and Rūth, the real daughter of Mexican painter Diego Rivera. The story is set in Cairo, Vienna, where they met, and Mexico in the early 1950s. The novel also reflects on the political and social context of Egypt in the 1950s, which resemble the situation before the 2011 uprisings.

Refrences:

In order of appearance