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A review of an excerpt from Muti’ah Badruddeen’s novel, Rekiya & Z, by Ibrahim Ibrahim.
MUCH has been said about Muti’ah Badruddeen and her novel, Rekiya & Z. The book has made impressive rounds worldwide, across longlists, shortlists and literary wins. It was recently joint-crowned the 2022 winner of SprinNG Women Authors Prize. The book has defined Muti’ah’s importance as a writer, especially one who puts Muslim women at the centre of her writing, given that this is a particularly underrepresented demographic in literature generally. I believe it is right to conclude that Rekiya & Z’s status as a phenomenal book is widely agreed upon, so I will try as much as possible to focus only on ‘3 Days of Eid’ as a standalone piece, even though it is an excerpt from this book.
The piece, ‘3 Days of Eid’, is published in Brittle Paper’s holiday-themed anthology, ‘HomeGrown Joy: An Anthology of Festive African Writing’, edited by Tahzeeb Akram. As the name suggests, it takes the reader through three days of the Islamic festivities, but no one day here is similar to another. One thing I particularly enjoy is how each day serves as a window into the character’s life. Day one opens to pomp and opulence, with the exoticness of the setting reeking off Muti’ah’s strings of words, but the reader is quickly reminded that it is not sure where the character fits in all of these. And the reader gets an insight into a life she is just starting to build, and how it makes sense that she is celebrating a day of Eid there.
Day two comes at the reader with much more subtlety, with the character evidently placed in more familiar territories. Muti’ah, however, creates contrast and internal conflict that show how much being in familiar territories doesn’t always guarantee settlement. The reader is thus able to see even more of the character’s life, especially her past and how she has been shaped into her present self. Again, it definitely makes sense that she is there for Eid.
While days one and two focus more on external settings, Day three turns the camera within as though this takes place in the character’s own house, mostly in a conversation with her therapist. The reader is able to wander through her mind, thoughts and feelings. This creates a much needed closure as we have already seen two other windows into her life and her person, each very different and full of questions. The reader is left with so much to think about and long for. Thus, a piece that is an excerpt ends up giving the reader a great opening, an insightful middle and an even greater ending, something that most excerpts always struggle to do.
Apart from the story being such a strong one, credit goes to Muti’ah’s exquisite gift with words. The musicality of her writing, the power and prowess with which her sentences come at you, the vividness of their imagery and the sublime quality make you so sure that you want to read this writer again. This is definitely one writer with a very bright literary future. We have seen many literary wins for the main novel, but I can easily see ‘3 Days of Eid’ also doing exploits of its own. In a more general sense, it will be no surprise to see Muti’ah Badruddeen at the pinnacle of international writing in the not-so-distant future.
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