If the Lebanese social pyramid is currently experiencing great upheavals, the delicate question of those who are called the “good ones” still seems relevant. Regardless of the treatment they experience within the families in which they work, their legal status, the application of kafala and their inability to defend their rights place them in a situation of great vulnerability. Jean-François Chabas’ novel takes place in 1993, the day following a war that is still very present in the characters’ reality. It depicts the arrival of Ife in a family in Achrafieh and the wide variety of reactions it arouses.
Faced with her new employee, Téta is disappointed by the darkness of her skin and her tattoos; the 17-year-old narrator, Nada, seems to embrace this aversion, much to the chagrin of the adult she has become. “If this young girl had touched my special soap for young skin, I wouldn’t have dared to use it. Why didn’t we get a maid without tattoos and cleaner? (…) Surely, Téta must have chosen the lowest price in the catalog. (…) What might my grandmother have complained regarding having chosen an Ethiopian? Everyone knew they were worse off. Nada’s younger brother, Habib, quickly manages to bond with the young immigrant worker, aware of her fragility. Other righteous and successful characters are involved in the journey of this changing family, such as Nada’s phalangist and misogynistic boyfriend or her aunt, Zaza, who enjoys a hectic career as a dancer, which places her outcast from society.
This realistic story illustrates a progressive awareness of the inanity of castes through lively and alert writing, full of significant details and emphatic Lebanese exclamations, such as the teslamilé, esmessalib or dakhilik which punctuate the text. The passage which relates the organized escape of the Filipino alter ego from Ife, who works for a neighboring deputy and who has been locked up for several days, is particularly tasty. In the end, it is the reality of beings, their personality and their moral strength that seems to take over in the characters’ existential journey, rendering obsolete any desire to belong to such and such an environment. The old Téta, whose acerbic remarks have a comic dimension, becomes endearing in her final fraternal outburst, and the young Ife acquires a form of visibility and a space for expression within the family, but above all in the narrative fabric.
The cover of the book.
The harshness of reality and the enchantment of ideals
Jean-François Chabas confides that the writing project for this novel is old. “I have been dating Lebanese for more than thirty years. At the time, my companion frequented Aboudhabiens who behaved in a very humiliating way with their servants. As stated on the back cover, this issue concerns the Middle East in general, and it can take different forms in the West. I always told myself that one day I would write around this question. My companion is Lebanese and she is partly the narrator as well as the somewhat sassy dancer in the story. She worked for Lebanese television and did many shows in Lebanon and Syria, moreover the episode of violence suffered by the dancers in the novel is true, like most of the anecdotes told, “says the writer, whose the text highlights characters not necessarily well perceived in Lebanese society, dancers, but also homosexuals, the disabled… The author confirms that he is particularly sensitive to the feminist cause. “My mother suffered a lot from violence and I was sensitive to this issue very early on. Some men see feminist men as traitors, which makes no sense,” he continues firmly.
One might criticize the first evocations of Ife for a tendency to angelism, even if the character is embodied over the pages. According to the author, this may be linked to an overall politically correct editorial inclination. “I’ve been writing for children’s literature for thirty years and it’s a daily struggle because in this environment, we tend to be very givers of lessons. This is not the case with the people of High Talents, whose approach is more intelligent. This flaw has worsened in recent years: if you deal with racism in a novel, your black or Arab characters must be portrayed in an angelic way, otherwise you will be blamed for the evil you want to denounce. Racism, homosexuality or transgender people are hot topics and it is becoming more and more difficult to deal with them. I tried to do it without Manichaeism. When I wrote regarding Aborigines I was criticized for portraying them as being prone to drink, this is a dangerous situation because you are moving away from reality into a fantasy realm where there are the racist villains of one side and the nice victims on the other”, warns Jean-François Chabas. “I exaggerated the virtues of Ife a little because I wanted him to be a beautiful character. And then I worked for a long time in security, I rubbed shoulders with young girls from Ethiopia and elsewhere leading working lives. I have often been struck by their kindness, their strength of character and their dignity”, continues the novelist, who knew how to portray complex and endearing characters. “In the last pages, the old lady who has been racist all her life ends up treating her maid like a member of the family, and she kisses her hand: fortunately, humanism sometimes makes it possible to transcend social divisions, which exist everywhere”, rejoices the one who is regularly invited to Salons to present his book, as well as the previous one, Laïka is back (editions du Rouergue, 2022), which is a fantastic novel.
Readers who had enjoyed La Fée des maamouls (Magnard jeunesse, 2016) will be delighted to find a new story by Jean-François Chabas, which delicately combines the harshness of reality and the enchantment of ideals.
The “Les Héroiques” collection publishes historical novels featuring characters rarely highlighted, which is particularly successful in Ma petite bonne, which was published in partnership with Amnesty International.
If the Lebanese social pyramid is currently experiencing great upheavals, the delicate question of those who are called the “good ones” still seems relevant. Regardless of the treatment they experience within the families in which they work, their legal status, the application of kafala and their inability to defend their rights…
