Madonna, the owner of the fur coat

Since its publication more than seventy years ago – 1943 AD – Madonna novel has not left the list of best-selling books in Turkey, and this makes it one of the important Turkish classics which has recently been translated into Arabic, an excellent translation despite being the first by Mr. Jihad Al-Amasi. Born Sabah Al-Din Ali in the late days of the Ottoman Empire, in the city of Ardino, which is now within the borders of Bulgaria, he studied in Istanbul, then was sent to Germany for two years – and he drew this novel from his experience and life there –, then returned to teach German in Aydin and Konya, was arrested because of a poem in which he criticized Ataturk, and he only returned to the teaching profession after writing another poem glorifying Ataturk. Sabah Al-Din served in the army where he wrote his novel (Madonna with the Fur Coat) in the tent of one of his camps, and it is said that his hand was broken in the early days, so he used to put it in warm water to write. Later, he established the newspaper (Marco Pasha) with Turkey’s most famous writer (Aziz Nissen). He suffered from detention, restrictions, and his request for a passport was refused, so he decided to escape across the Bulgarian border, but he was unfortunately killed under mysterious circumstances by the smuggler who was said to be cooperating with the authorities. Sabah Al-Din Ali’s body was only discovered after months. In 2007, the Bulgarian city of Ardino celebrated the hundredth anniversary of Sabah Al-Din Ali’s birth, and his writings have been studied in Bulgarian schools since the fifties. Sabah Al-Din Ali left behind three novels, one play, several short stories, and poems, and now is the opportunity to look at his most important works ever. We can classify the novel (Madonna with the Fur Coat) as one of the expatriates’ love stories, something similar to (The Latin Quarter) by Suhail Idris, or somewhat like (Season of Migration to the North) by Tayeb Salih. Behind this type of novels lies a cultural conflict between the East and the West, where the young Eastern man is dazzled by Western civilization and its progress, and shy about the delay and backwardness of the East. He tries to connect with this civilization through a Western girl, attempting to address – as George Tarabishi called it – the narcissistic wound. I recommend reading his wonderful book (East and West, Masculinity and Femininity: A Study of the Crisis of Gender and Civilization in the Arabic Novel). Of course, Sabah Al-Din Ali’s novel does not suffer from that terrifying narcissistic wound, as he wrote it after Turkey’s liberation and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, so he did not suffer from that deep Arab condition, which was worsened by Arab defeats against the Israeli enemy. The novel opens with the narrator, who in his new job meets a crushed man named Rafi’ Effendi. I think each of us has met Rafi’ Effendi at some point in his life. He is that man whom no one pays attention to, a person living on the margins, neither objecting nor raising his voice. This is how the narrator found Rafi’ Effendi at work and at home. With Rafi’ Effendi’s illness and his approaching death, the narrator obtains his memoirs, which Rafi’ Effendi insists on burning, but the narrator rescues them to read to us. Thus, doors to another world open for us, where Rafi’ Effendi sheds the clothes of the miserable man to reveal behind him a great lover. From there, we jump from Ankara, where Rafi’ Effendi lives and works, to Berlin, where he went in his youth sent by his father to learn the secrets of soap-making. But there, he encounters a painting that fascinates him, and then meets the painter’s owner. This is how the love story unfolds between the naive Turkish youth and Madonna with the Fur Coat. The novel is filled with coincidences that characterize classic novels and disturb any modern reader, but overall, the novel is enjoyable.