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Mansi: A Rare Man
in His Own Way
Mansi: A Rare Man in His Own Way
First published in English translation
by Banipal Books, London 2020
This translation © The Estate of Tayeb Salih, 2019
First published in Arabic 2004
Original title:
Mansi: Insaan Nadir ala Tariqatihi
published by Riad El Rayyes, Beirut 2004.
© The Estate of Tayeb Salih 2009
The moral rights of Tayeb Salih to be identified as the author of these works and of Adil Babikir to be identified as the translator of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher
A CIP record for this book is available in the British Library
ISBN 978-0-9956369-8-9
E-book: ISBN: 978-0-9956369-9-6
Banipal Books
1 Gough Square, LONDON EC4A 3DE, UK
www.banipal.co.uk/banipalbooks/
Banipal Books is an imprint of Banipal Publishing
Typeset in Bembo
Mansi and Tayeb Salih
INTRODUCTION
Tayeb Salih:
Non-Fiction Writing at its Best
With only three novels, written between 1966 and 1976, Tayeb Salih rose to international fame as one of the greatest novelists of our time.
His Season of Migration to the North has been making waves throughout the Arab world since it was first published in 1966, and across the globe once it appeared in Denys Johnson-Davies’s English translation in 1969. The highly celebrated novel immediately received critical acclaim as “among the finest six novels to be written in modern Arabic literature” in the words of Edward Said, and the most important Arabic novel of the 20th century, according to the Damascus-based Arab Literary Academy. It has been translated into more than 20 languages and selected by the Norwegian Book Club among the world’s top 100 works of all time.
While Salih has continued to be in the spotlight among critics and academia, with scores of critiques and scholarly articles focused on his work, he remained virtually unproductive for almost a decade. His last novel, Bandarshah, was published in two parts in 1971 and 1976.
However, starting from the late 1980s, Salih appeared every week on the last page of the London-based Al-Majalla magazine and over the next ten years captivated readers with his fine writings on diverse topics, including literary criticism, political commentary and reflections on life. These writings were later published in a collection of ten volumes.
One of the ten was the book in question here, published for the first time in English translation – Mansi: A Rare Man in His Own Way. The Arabic Mansi: Insaan Nadir ala Tariqatihi had been published in weekly instalments, starting in 1988, before being collected together and published in 2004. It is a unique type of writing, combining biography, autobiography, political analysis, and philosophical insight with a great sense of humour and satire.
Salih points out from the outset that the person he is writing about is not someone of note. “Yet, he was important in the eyes of a few, including myself, who accepted him as he was and loved him regardless. He was a man who had traversed life’s short journey in leaps and bounds, occupied more space than had been allocated for him, and caused quite a clamour within the realm of his existence.”
With that introduction, Salih sets us off on a hilarious journey with a friend whose rashness and indifference cause Salih tremendous embarrassment and almost costs him his job. Yet, the way Salih portrays Mansi strongly suggests the profound love he held for him.
Although Salih repeatedly pointed out that all the events in this book were “factual anecdotes”, many in the Arab world have misread the book as a novel. The confusion is partly related to Mansi, who has a unique blend of traits typical of a fictional character. A man who lived with at least three different names, and who played at least eight real time roles, from a porter to a university lecturer, and from a nurse to a clown. A penniless man who rose to the upper echelons of British society and married a girl from a prominent English family, a descendant of Sir Thomas More. A man daring enough to cross all security and protocol barriers – presenting himself to Queen Elizabeth as the head of an official Egyptian delegation, and engaging in a public debate, on a subject he knew little about, with no less a historian than Arnold Toynbee.
But it also had to do with Salih’s writing style. In Mansi, and invariably in all his other non-fiction writing, including even political commentary, Salih skilfully employs fiction-writing techniques to weave texts that seem to slip through the borders of genres. His amazing ability to mould his ideas into a captivating, coherent, and well-knitted narrative is evident throughout this book.
Another unique advantage of this book is that it provides a rare exposure to Salih’s personal life as it contains glimpses of his career years at the BBC, at UNESCO, and of his social encounters with friends in Cairo, Beirut, and other cities. Here, Salih comes out into the open without the usual camouflage of the fiction writer, unlike in his novels where he consistently hides behind an unnamed narrator who has some aspects in common with him. Through the lens of this exposure, we see a highly satirical Salih with a keen sense of humour. We also see a collected person who remains unflappable in the face of the most delicate challenges.
Apart from Mansi, the ten-volume collection, published by the Beirut-based Riad El-Rayyes publishing house and the Omdurman-based Abdel Karim Mirghani Center, included a volume on al-Mutanabbi, which contains thought-provoking insights into the verse of this legendary poet for whom Salih showed great admiration, calling him “the master”.
Another volume, dubbed Fi Rehab al-Janadriyah and Asilah (About al-Janadriyah and Asilah), focuses on two prominent cultural festivals hosted by Saudi Arabia and Morocco respectively. A third, Al-Mudi’oun kal-Nujoom (Prominent Stars), discusses the works and ideas of some prominent figures from the East and West.
The list from the West includes British politician Rab Butler (Lord Butler), British journalist Michael Adams, French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes, British historian and journalist A. J. P. Taylor, French novelist Marcel Proust, and others. There are also dedicated volumes about Sudan, travel commentary, and other topics.
In his introduction to the ten-volume collection, Salih’s lifetime friend, the late Mahmoud Salih, wrote: “To me, Tayeb Salih is an all-rounder, with a well-founded knowledge drawn from extensive readings across linguistics, religion, philosophy, politics, psychology, anthropology, literature, poetry, drama, and media, in both Arabic and English. This collection stands witness to his superb ability to captivate readers with great narratives, analysis, criticism, and insights.”
There is consensus among those who read the original Arabic version of Mansi that only a few writers can write non-fiction as poetically and lyrically as Salih. Perhaps many of those who come to read this English translation will have the same impression.
Adil Babikir
January 2020
1
The man who died about this time last year [1987]