“The Dark Dance” by Mohamed Saif Al-Mofty – Reviews and recommendations

When was the last time you read a Norwegian novel from the years when IS ruled in Mosul, Iraq? No exactly: this is a unique book with many strong points and some weak points, which I will return to. Iraqi-Norwegian Al-Mofty grew up in Mosul. Close family lived in the city when the terrorist organization IS took over in June 2014. After a while, the author left Norway to join his family in Iraq. The main character in “The Dark Dance” does exactly the same. The novel is an alloy of experiences, facts, real people and poetry. Extreme risk projects The calm atmosphere in the favorite cafe at Ski Storsenter will soon be replaced by significantly rougher dining venues in Iraq, where the wrong dress code and suspicious use of cutlery send out signals that can be fatal. IS has an eye for the small details. The novel closely follows the journalist Saif through six months of drama, enough for a long life. Here it is about rescuing nephews who have fallen into the net of IS, it is about receiving and forwarding documentation of IS’s rampages to the western media, and gradually it is also about taking part in the international arms trade. All of these are naturally extreme risk projects in a society where it is not crystal clear who is friend and who is enemy, to put it mildly. CLOSE TO ICE: Iraqi-Norwegian Mohamed Saif Al-Mofty has previously written two novels in Arabic. In “Den mørke dansen”, his first book in Norwegian, he depicts the complex fight against extremism. Photo: SolumBokvennen Alongside these dramatic heroic deeds, it’s about standing up for a rather demanding family, which wants the youngest brother not only to sort out problems he is the best at solving. He also has to take the boring jobs. And as if that wasn’t enough: He has to deal with the ailing relationship with his wife, who feels severely de-prioritized while the man works to save the family and Mosul. Life-necessary and life-threatening humor Things go from bad to worse and the novel is dark as it happens. But not only that: the humor keeps trickling forward. Like when Adam comforts his pious aunt with a verse from the Koran: Saif [spurte] Adam, who was otherwise never concerned with religion, about how he managed to recite the verse from the Koran by heart. – I asked my prophet, Adam said, and Saif stared at him, surprised. Adam grinned and said: – My prophet’s name is Google. That joke could probably have cost a few lashes if he had reached the wrong ear: You don’t joke with the prophet, and internet use is haram in the value universe of IS. A real example of how humor can be both vital and dangerous at the same time. Hear Mohamed Saif Al-Mofty about the book in Studio 2: Ord i utide I signaled by way of introduction that the novel also has weak sides, and here belongs the somewhat cumbersome style where scenes and points of view are expanded further than necessary. Then there are a number of words and expressions that seem funny, but not in the original and eye-opening way: Consul becomes consultant, and “the clock had become as much as nine-thirty”. Al-Mofty has previously written two novels in Arabic. This is the first novel he has written in Norwegian. When the author takes the big leap over to another language, the publisher should have done the relatively small job of weeding out the small, but slightly disturbing errors. New and important voice That IS had a low threshold for arrest, torture and execution is well known from before. But when it happens to the nephew Omar in Saif’s family, it hits the reader in a different way. The novel does what novels can: let us meet the individual before he experiences what we know many have experienced. The brutal methods, but also the contemptuous look at people who do not believe in the right way, remain in the reader. One gets quite happy with the rule of law by reading this book. The Norwegian-Iraqi perspective is not particularly detailed until the end. When Saif is back in Norway, I expect the novel to wrap up nicely and end with a salmon sandwich at Ski Storsenter. Al-Mofty, instead of turning the whole thing up a notch, shows once again the complexity of the fight against extremism. Al-Mofty is a new and important voice in Norwegian literature. news reviews Photo: SolumBokvennen Title: “The dark dance” Author: Mohamed Saif Ibrahim Al-Mofty Genre: Fiction Year of publication: 2023 Pages: 456 Publisher: SolumBokvennen



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