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 Writing.Com Item ID: #1397615
 Title:  The Translator by Daoud Hari
 Item Type: Static Item
 Brief:  My review of an advance copy of the book.
 Last Modified: 03-06-2008 @ 11:21pm
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In another time I would never have heard of Daoud Hari, but he likely would be known in his own village as an educated man who knows many stories from other lands. It isn't another time, though, and Hari's book, The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur, is in my hands. What I find remarkable, beautifully so, is that Hari is a friendly, kind, gentle and loving man. The tribesman, potential tribal elder (looked up to, if not officially a leader) comes shining through. It is the saddest (a woefully insufficient word) thing that none of this is what Hari wants to show. The story he must tell, what makes him so remarkable to me, is painful and devastating (more insufficient words).

Hari has seen things no one should have to see, heard stories no one should have to hear, much less endure. He is from Darfur, a part of Sudan, where the "powers that be" are trying to eradicate those who have lived there for generations. He has seen his own village, and many others, wiped out. He has lost family members and friends

Hari is representative of his people. He is the way he was taught to be. His gentleness and faith in people are part of his culture. In the translator, Hari gives us a glimpse of this culture and his youth. Then he tells the story of how he bacame, and his experiences as, a translator, mainly for journalists covering Darfur. The stories themselves made me want to put down this book. What is happening there is beyond horrible, but Hari's gentleness, his ability to find humor in the darkest situation, without belittling or destroying the genuine pathos of that situation, is what kept me reading.

Two lines in particular struck me. This first was in Chapter 10 Sticks for Shade: When noting the limited and often inappropriate aid the people of Darfur are receiving he stated "Perhaps the wealthy nations had finally blown themselves away and were no longer available to send their token remedies for the problems that their thirst for resources has always brought to such people as these." (pp. 73-74) A kind, gentle man, yes, but not blind or ignorant of the world. The second was something to think about. "The proof of a democracy is surely whether or not a government represents the hearts of its people." (p 85)

Where do we stand? Can we, as humans, afford to lose a people whose sense of hospitality interferes with their ability to torture others?

I knew something bad was happening in Darfur. I didn't really know what. It is far away and doesn't affect me personally. Daoud Hari has told me what is happening and made it personal.