By Fire: Writings on the Arab Spring

Reading and Teaching By Fire

I read passages from By Fire at the American Literary Translator’s Association’s 2014 annual conference. As I read, my voice caught. Looking up at the audience, I saw tears in their eyes. I realized at that precise moment the power words can have over us. I also realized the importance of literary translation. There are urgent stories out there that need to be told in as many languages as possible and made available to world readers. I also read the translation at SUNY Stony Brook’s reading series. The university’s Poetry Center was packed with professors and students. I was moved by the pin-drop silence while the audience learned about Mohamed’s experience. For a moment, Mohamed was among us, and the audience could hear his voice. Many questions followed the reading. Perhaps because By Fire is based on a true story, it generates wide interest and has such a strong impact.

Reading the novella has had a strong effect on my students. They began writing research papers on the Arab Spring in January 2011 and have continued ever since. Their research turns up astonishing information about dictatorship, government corruption, police violence, and human rights abuses in the MENA region and elsewhere. Before reading By Fire, their essays were objective and journalistic reports. After spending time with the story, though, students write about corruption and human rights abuse with greater urgency, compassion, awareness, and concern. Bouazizi becomes more than a sterile historical figure; he is a devoted son, a caring brother, and a gentle lover, a man whom my students can understand and relate to.

Even so, I am intrigued that many of my students find fault with Mohamed’s behavior and choices. “If it was the only way to make a living and take care of his family,” they ask, “why didn’t he bribe the police?” After all, they point out, Bouazizi bribed a travel agent to get an air-ticket refund. By killing himself, Mohamed deprived his family of essential support, which these students see as stubborn, selfish, reckless, and weak. They don’t see him as a hero, but as a poor, desperate man whose self-immolation unwittingly triggered a revolt.

Some students do research on Ben Jelloun to understand more about why he wrote Bouazizi’s story in the first place. They often wonder whether his motivation lay in his two-year military camp detention. Perhaps it is there, they often suggest, that he learned what it is to suffer at the hands of corrupt police.

What matters most to me is that By Fire provokes my students to ask questions. They want to know more about the writer, the historical Mohamed Bouazizi, the region, and the Arab Spring. The work has sparked student interest not only in the historical figure, but also the historical and political reasons behind the unprecedented Arab Spring movement. They want to know what became of the movement and how it relates to contemporary conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond. Students’ enthusiasm for engaging with Mohamed Bouazizi is the reason that my main objective in the classroom is generating their interest in global issues through global literature in English translation.