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Call Me Leila, by N.G. Hanna
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The start of the Arab spring, inspires Leila to summon enough courage and run away from her husband, believing that in Tahrir Square she will free herself from the shackles of her abusive marriage.
An illegitimate child of an illiterate maid and a well-off doctor, Leila’s dream is to find her father, a man she only knows from an old yellowed photograph. Instead, she spends twenty-five years in a loveless marriage. After she escapes her husband, she embarks on an adventure which takes her from joining a revolution, to the slums of Cairo where she gets involved with a fundamentalist sect. She will survive riots, change her name and go into hiding. Along her journey, she meets a lawyer who helps her escape and a young man who leads her to her father. In the end, when she comes face-to-face with the man from the photograph, she realizes that throughout her journey she has found what is more important: her own voice.
- Sales Rank: #504378 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-11-27
- Released on: 2013-11-27
- Format: Kindle eBook
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A Terrific Debut Novel by a Novelist of Great Promise. Call Me Leila should become a Hallmark Channel Hit!
By Bill Anderson
In her debut 249 page novel, Ms Hanna has managed to pack in not one, but two life stories of poor Christian women growing up on what we, in America, would call 'the wrong side of the tracks.'
Having spent some 11 years of my life living in Egypt, even working a fair amount in Mansoura, I was impressed at how well Hanna was able to encapsulate life in this city famous for the reasons cited. She does this by showing, instead of telling. This method of setting the stage is especially difficult for most new writers, but Hanna accomplishes the task beautifully for Meshmesha and for Galeila.
I normally do not read novels of this type, but, at her request to review, I did take advantage of the opportunity to download a free novel about life in Egypt spanning the period from Nasser's revolution of 1952 through the Arab Spring and concluding shortly after the first democratically-elected president was ousted in 2013. I especially love how her character, a devastatingly poor Christian, so succinctly had dismissed any concerns regarding Morsi's ouster despite her previous elation at the removal of the Mubarak concern. What I mean is, she didn't spend a great number of pages on this. Less than one. Other writers might have utilized a doesn't or so pages.
Although she DID develop both characters, in just 249 pages, I believe these two women were interesting enough to warrant two books. Book one could have provided a prelude to Meshmesha, with a solid background of Egypt from the time of the Great Depression through the birth of Galeila. Meshmesha and her siblings remind me of Laura and the Little House books or the Walton's but, of course, from a far more poverty-stricken point of view and from a different angle, but the story could sell if well told. Of course, think is still possible and I would buy such a story.
The second book could cover Galeila's life, but would develop more of the characters whom she married and/or loved. And it should include bits of the terrorism that took place in 1997, the earthquake in 1992, and, especially, on the various feuds in Upper Egypt that most Americans would suspect she was exaggerating about.
What I'm saying is, Call Me Leila is a terrific story that could be two great stories if she chooses to.
I definitely recommend this novel. I honestly believe it gives an insight into a demographic within Egyptian society that needs to be heard by people outside Egypt. Too many Americans think all Egyptians are Muslim and too few appreciate the fact that the vast majority of Egyptians are not terrorists. Hanna has found a way to show us both facets of a complex, cosmopolitan, society. Not so diverse as the USA, but nearly so.
I look forward to more novels from this author. She could become a serious Hallmark Channel contributor in the future. It all depends on whether she will continue working to become the very best writer she can be.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
"Killers of the Dream..."
By John P. Jones III
N.G. Hanna has successfully woven a number of important themes into her first novel. The novel spans a good half century, with one of the climatic moments being the events of Tahrir Square which brought down the three decade rule of Hosni Mubarak. The euphoria of this triumph briefly flitted across the Western media; the reaction, and the restoration of "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" was not as photogenic, and hence "flew under the radar" of international news coverage. I recently finished reading Marcel Proust's The Guermantes Way, set in a time period more than a century after the French Revolution. Proust depicts a social structure that had largely replicated the hierarchical privilege and economic injustice that was pre-revolutionary. Proust has a character say that Waterloo was necessary in order to have the Restoration (of the monarchy.)
Hanna has her protagonist, Galeila, later to drop her first syllable, and simple be known as Leila, as in the title, play a demonstrative role in illustrating how the 1% restore their "privileges." In Egypt, they fanned sectarian differences, between Muslims and Coptic Christians, and between fundamentalists and secularists. Galeila is caught up in the middle, a "pawn in their game." I thought of Lillian Smith's classic work, written in 1949, Killers of the Dream about how the 1% in the American South would use race to divide poor whites and poor blacks, and thereby having each focus on the other, rather than examine the economic structure that held them in poverty.
It is also a novel involving family relations and the longings of the heart. And in particular, it is on the difficulties women face in Egyptian society. Yes, many an unhappiness, each in their own way. Meshmesha means apricot; "country people" would often give their children the names of fruits. Galeila's mother was so named, born in the countryside in 1950. At the age of 9, she becomes a "maid," (effectively, involuntary servitude) to a journalist's family in Cairo (Hanna notes the irony that he was a liberal journalist writing on the conditions of the poor... and somehow those folks never seem to look inside their own households). Meshmesha grows up within this household, and eventually marries, and Hanna deftly handles the circumstances surrounding the conception and birth of her only daughter, Galeila. The latter's search for her father is also a dominate theme in the book. Ah, father-daughter relationships.
In the background is Egyptian history, particularly the (little recalled, nowadays, in the West) war in the Yemen, in support of Republican forces. Hanna uses one of her characters to sarcastically deride concepts such as "Pan-Arabism." The Six Day War with Israel also plays a part, with more modern concepts of PTSD. Even more modern, and more impressive, was the soldier involved just faking it?
Countries export various products. In Egypt's case (along with the Philippines, Indonesia and Pakistan) it seems that their principal export is their own people. This is another theme woven throughout the novel, starting with Meshmesha's husband having to emigrate to France and Libya in search of work, and ending with a large scale migration to Canada, of numerous principal characters, towards the end of the novel. The pros and cons of Galeilia's (Leilia's) new "heaven" are aptly described.
Should one maintain ties with the past, or "move on" is another climatic question that the author handles well. I was convinced in reading this work that it HAD to be largely autobiographical. Although Hanna is Egyptian, and now living in Canada, she says that it is NOT. If so, and why should I doubt, it is an impressive work of empathy and imagination. 5-stars.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Engrossing look at two women striving for better lives
By Scott Whitmore
"Call me Leila" by N. G. Hanna is an engrossing and often unsettling look at the lives of two Egyptian women, set against the backdrop of their nation's often turbulent history over the past six decades. I was given a copy by the author in exchange for this review.
The story opens in early 2011 during the Arab Spring as crowds of demonstrators gather in Cairo's Tahrir Square for what would become known as the January 25 Revolution. Among the people in the square, who come from different backgrounds, religions and stations in Egyptian society, there is an awakening of hope: for freedom, for democracy, for justice.
The hope of Galeila, who flees to the square to escape her abusive husband, is that somehow among the sea of demonstrators she will find the father she has never met. But as Galeila and her mother, Meshmesha -- whose story is told in the early chapters -- know too well, the flip side of hope is despair, and there is plenty of that for these two women.
Born to a poor farming family in a northern city, after her mother's death Meshmesha is sent away at her stepmother's insistence to earn money as the servant for a well-to-do family in Cairo, where she is given a worn mattress to sleep atop on the kitchen floor: "This is a step up for someone like her," her mistress explained. "In her village, they sleep in dirt and live a life not much better than their livestock. She and the buffalo are no different," (Hanna, N.G. (2013-11-27). Call Me Leila (Kindle Locations 218-219). Kindle Edition.)
Illiterate and cut off from what little family she may have left on the farm, the tenuous nature of Meshmesha's existence is frighteningly revealed when she loses her job due to a misunderstanding. Where can she go? Who will help her? Who can stop those who want to take advantage of her? Sadly, not many years later these same questions will be asked by Galeila when Meshmesha dies suddenly.
They live in a culture centered around family, in which gender roles are more defined and males predominant. Marriages are often arranged to suit economic or personal needs. Interestingly, Galeila and Meshmesha are also Copts, the largest Christian group in predominantly Muslim Egypt and while different groups may mix at higher economic levels, the poor are isolated from and fearful of those outside their religion. During the revolution Galeila crosses these lines, setting into motion a chain of events that may eventually get her what she wants.
Although I enjoyed it, "Call Me Leila" is not a book I would normally pick up for myself. But one of the perks of being an amateur book reviewer is getting offered the opportunity to explore different genres, and some of the better reads I've had in the past few years have been books such as this that I would likely skip otherwise.
Another reviewer stated Call Me Leila is not a page-turner, and I would agree with that assessment, but I also encourage readers who may chafe at the pace to stick with it. Meshmesha and Galeila's story may resemble a fairy tale, but there are no magic godmothers or handsome princes to save the day. As the author told me in an email: "As for Galeila, there are many women like her who strive for a better life only to find themselves caught in a game which is not theirs." This means any gains achieved by these women must be hard-won, and are therefore more satisfying.
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