Both Affinités électives (10/2) and Du jour au lendemain (9/25) interviewed Atiq Rahimi last week to talk about Syngué Sabour. Though the book is written in French, the title is Persian. It means "patience stone" and is the name of a magic black stone that absorbs the stress of those who believe. Some, in the book, say it is the stone at Mecca, around which millions of pilgrims walk. One day it will explode, overloaded with human misfortune, and that will be the apocalypse.
But in the book, Syngué Sabour is an Afghan man who has been paralyzed by a bullet in his neck. His wife resents his bellicose nature that has left him a vegetable, but she cares for him, and talks to him, never knowing if he can hear. Her confessions become increasingly unfettered by the social, religious and conjugal oppression of Afghanistan. Until one day the stone explodes.
Rahimi depicts the oppressive reality of everyday life in Afghanistan, and especially that of women living with a particular notion of Islam.
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