Poor by Idris Ali, translated by Elliott Colla. Published by the American University in Cairo Press, 209 Pages

WITH its terse title and gloomy face crowned with a bloody skullcap on the book cover, Idris Ali’s latest novel, “Poor,” conditions the reader right from the very beginning. It was originally published in 2005 with the Arabic title “Taht Khatt Al-Faqr” which means “Beneath the Poverty Line.” The translator was right to prefer the blunter “Poor” because the word highlights the novel’s utter bleakness and stark roughness.

This depressing tale of an anti-hero’s unsuccessful life is laced with crude descriptions and littered with bad luck, constant misfortunes and lost opportunities. The story follows the life of the narrator whose Nubian identity sets the tone of the novel.

Idris Ali is currently one of Egypt’s leading Nubian writer’s. His work of fiction has created a renewed awareness for the largely ignored plight of the Nubians whose ancestral land was submerged several times in the twentieth century by the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Nubian’s sacrifices began with the first dam in 1902 and continued in 1912 and 1933 with successive expansions. The inundation program ended in 1964 with the completion of the High Dam which left thousands of Nubians homeless with no support or reparation from the authorities.

In his latest novel “Poor,” Idris Ali, weaves the story of the Nubian narrator against the landmarks of Egypt’s modern history. Far from highlighting the sweet nostalgic feeling for Nubian history and culture, Ali underlines the dark side of this human tragedy and its social and economic impact. In the first pages, the narrator tells us how rare moments of happiness blaze into his mind: “Rare, because the expanse of misery in the map of your life is enough to pulverize millions “

“Poor” is almost devoid of happy moments, and occasional lighter ones are diminished by the writer’s lethal black humor: “When one of the bystanders congratulates the boatman for having rescued you, the other sums it up like this, ‘Thanks for what? We get this everyday! We’ve given up fishing for fish, now we mostly fish for humans. Everyday someone jumps into the Nile.’”

In fact even before reading the first page, the reader is not only told that “Poor” is solely for adults but he is also issued a warning: “If you suffer from even mild high blood pressure, do not read this novel.”

“Poor” is saturated with feelings of indignant displeasure and anger for the racist insults and wrongs committed against the Nubians. Idris Ali mentions “barbari,” a pejorative term used in the Egyptian dialect for black Africans, especially Nubians: “The degrading element of the word is rooted in a close association between human culture and linguistic competence; the barbari is someone who mispronounces and misuses Arabic, and his broken speech points to a lack of culture. To call a Nubian “barbari” is thus doubly insulting: First, because it ignores the words which Nubians call themselves; and second, because it suggests the ineloquent Nubian is less than fully human,” explains Elliott Colla.

The writer’s use of a vitriolic narrative is not common in Egyptian literature and in a useful translator’s afterword, Colla points out that Ali is one of the first Egyptian or Arab writers to experiment with writing the literature of resentment. Despite all the feelings of inequality and justified anger expressed in the story, the reader is frustrated to see the narrator, the perfect anti- hero, fail miserably. Instead of trying to overcome his unending hardships and misfortunes, he squanders all the opportunities that presented themselves and becomes a being without a purpose or plans for the future. “Poor” ultimately draws attention to the protagonist’s poor and weak character. The worst state of poverty is a dire lack of moral and human qualities which can help the destitute deal with, as well as overcome, their desperate circumstances.