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BOOKS TO WHILE AWAY THE HOURS DAY 5

26/3/2020

My last book for this week is a real page turner. Set in Iceland it is based on the true story of Agnes Magnusdottir. BURIAL RITES was written by the Australian author, Hannah Kent as part of her PhD thesis.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2014.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD.

Set in Northern Iceland in 1829.
A woman is condemned to death for murdering her lover.
A family forced to take her in.
A priest tasked with absolving her.
But all is not as it seems, and time is running out:
winter is coming, and with it the execution date.

Only she can know the truth. This is Agnes's story.

A fascinating glimpse of Icelandic life in 19th century, interwoven with myths and legends that still influenced the islanders way of life and attitudes. This is more than a crime novel.

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BOOKS TO WHILE AWAY THE HOURS DAY 4

25/3/2020

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My book for today is INTO SUEZ by the Welsh novelist, Stevie Davies, whose books have often cropped up on the short list but never claimed a prize.

1949: Egypt's struggle against its British occupiers moves towards crisis; Israel declares its statehood, driving out the Arabs; Joe Roberts, an RAF sergeant, his wife Ailsa and daughter, Nia, leave Wales for Egypt. "Into Suez" is a compelling human and political drama, set in the postwar period when Britain, the bankrupt victor of the Second World War, attempted to assert itself as an Imperial power in a world wholly altered. The novel is set in the run-up to the Suez Crisis, a template for future invasions (Iraq and Afghanistan being the most recent). In this moving story, Joe's tragedy is that of an ordinary working man of his generation: he's a lovely, humorous, emotional man in whom the common ration of racism and misogyny becomes a painful sickness. Ailsa, intelligent, curious and craving to explore the realities of the Egypt she enters, meets on the voyage out Mona, a Palestinian woman who excites in her yearning for a world beyond her horizons. When Joe's closest friend is murdered by Egyptian terrorists, their relationship spirals towards tragedy. Through it all, love remains. Looking back in old age, their daughter Nia follows in their wake to sail the Suez Canal with the aged Mona. Nia has been told her father was a war hero: now she will face a more painful truth.

REVIEW FROM THE GUARDIAN

In Davies's story, Ailsa is an intelligent, self-sufficient young woman from the Welsh valleys who, accompanied by her young daughter Nia, sails out in 1947 to join her husband who is serving in the RAF at Ismalia in the Western Desert. Life in the world's largest military installation has some compensations, such as unrationed cherries in the company store. But the salt marshes of Suez are pitilessly inhospitable – "a lunar landscape as flat as Suffolk and sterile as death" – which leaves Ailsa to wonder "how many Arab labourers died to dig this . . . ditch the Roberts family was arriving to defend as somehow British as the Manchester ship canal"?
Wives of the rank and file are expected to keep their heads down and confine themselves to quarters. Yet Ailsa is spellbound by a sophisticated, dark-skinned concert pianist named Mona with whom she forms an attachment on the boat. Mona's husband is an Israeli army psychologist, which leads Ailsa to assume Mona must be Jewish; yet it transpires that she is an exiled Palestinian Arab.
Also on the voyage is a young German refugee travelling to be reunited with her British husband and a querulous Welsh woman whose hostility towards anything foreign encapsulates the narrow, British fear of displacement. It's a cast of characters whose nationalities and circumstances are as confused and combustible as Suez itself; and though the story culminates in a distressingly well-executed denouement, Davies's main theme is what occurs when protocols are breached and privates' wives drawn into unguarded intimacy with the officer class. "What was Ailsa guilty of? Just getting out of line. Being, not even a black sheep, but a piebald sort of sheep in a field of whitish fleeces."
As the daughter of an RAF officer herself, Davies has firsthand experience of being shunted round the remnants of empire: "The war had beggared and bankrupted Britain. We'd scuttled out of India and Palestine and we'd have to scuttle out of the rest of the Middle East. Scuttling was all we were good for." Davies first dealt with the traumas of being a bullied army child in 2001's The Element of Water; and her picture of the cruel indifference and blind prejudice of the British occupation of Egypt seems to have been further honed by her understanding of the average British forces boarding school.
Davies frames the historical action with the contemporary account of Nia, who travels back to Egypt to meet her mother's friend Mona, still a celebrated and charismatic concert pianist in her old age. Nia's recollection of the 1950s is fragmentary, but formed of vivid impressions such as the sight of "stricken animals bleeding in the water". In one of the novel's most memorable scenes, we discover how bored British troops sailing to Suez used porpoises as target practice. "Ordered to do so, someone said. Uproar. Barbarians! Oh God, porpoises are only fish. Get a grip. Don't you eat fish and chips then?"
It has to be pointed out to them that the creatures are warm-blooded mammals, like ourselves. But the incident serves as an example of Davies's remarkable ability to encapsulate imperial wrong-headedness in a single, indelibly recorded incident: cynical, gratuitous – neither sense nor purpose.

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BOOKS TO WHILE AWAY THE HOURS DAY 3

24/3/2020

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Day three and my choice is by an Irish author (in my opinion some of the best writers come out of Ireland) Niall Williams. His novel "HISTORY OF THE RAIN" is a bitter sweet story set in County Clare, where the author lives. It was long-listed for the BOOKER PRIZE in 2014.

We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. In Faha, County Clare, everyone is a long story...
Bedbound in her attic room beneath the falling rain, in the margin between this world and the next, Plain Ruth Swain is in search of her father. To find him, enfolded in the mystery of ancestors, Ruthie must first trace the jutting jaw lines, narrow faces and gleamy skin of the Swains from the restless Reverend Swain, her great-grandfather, to grandfather Abraham, to her father, Virgil - via pole-vaulting, leaping salmon, poetry and the three thousand, nine hundred and fifty eight books piled high beneath the two skylights in her room, beneath the rain.
The stories - of her golden twin brother Aeney, their closeness even as he slips away; of their dogged pursuit of the Swains' Impossible Standard and forever falling just short; of the wild, rain-sodden history of fourteen acres of the worst farming land in Ireland - pour forth in Ruthie's still, small, strong, hopeful voice. A celebration of books, love and the healing power of the imagination, this is an exquisite, funny, moving novel in which every sentence sings.

And this is my Amazon review:

A mesmerising story, written from the point of view of young girl who is confined to her bed. A kaleidoscope of Ireland's society and recent history, a mixture of myth, legend and literary culture. The girl is a reader and the story is punctuated with references to characters and scenes from novels that she has read. Charming, funny and hard to put down.

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BOOKS TO WHILE AWAY THE HOURS DAY 2

24/3/2020

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My choice today is THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS by Robert Dodds, and is for lovers of historical fiction.

"A gripping and absorbing read" HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY

It is 1490. Northern Europe is in the grip of sweeping plagues and religious inquisitions, and in daily terror of the Day of Judgement. In the town of Den Bosch, the artist Jerome (Hieronymus Bosch) paints his visionary denunciation of sin and folly, ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, while his neglected wife Aleyt strays into sin herself. But Jerome is not immune from the world he portrays. A rival artist and a corrupt Abbess concoct a hellish plot that threatens to destroy him.

Here is my Amazon review:

What a gripping book. I'm not a great fan of Hieronymous Bosch's paintings, skilled though they are—too may demons and visions of hell—so was not sure if I would enjoy a novel based on his life. However the characterisation of the protagonists, especially Bosch and his wife was so true to life that I couldn't put the book down. I just had to know what happened to them. Dodds describes life in the small town where Bosch lives in great detail, showing his extensive research into the period and the course of the Inquisition in the Netherlands. But it's the human side of the story, with all its strengths and failings that brings it to life. His 'bad guys' are truly bad, but we still see a glimpse of why they are what they are. No stereotypes here.

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CHOOSING A BOOK TO WHILE AWAY THE HOURS day 1

24/3/2020

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While we are all in our own way trying to survive the coronavirus I thought that each day I would share with you one of my favourite books. You will soon realise that if I find an author I like, then I try to read all of their books. My first selection is a Scottish author and poet, Andrew Greig, and the book is, "In Another Light."

A young man leans over the railings of the ocean liner bound for the exotic shores of Penang. It is early in the 1930s and Dr Alexander Mackay is on his way to take up his post running a maternity hospital in the colony. During the voyage he meets two beautiful sisters and the seeds of a scandal are sown.

Seventy years later Edward Mackay wakes after a major brain trauma. In the hazy shadowlands of illness, he conjures the figure of his dead father, a man he knew so little about. This near-death experience provokes a move to the wilds of Orkney, where Edward joins a project to harness the tides around the island as a renewable source of energy. But in the tight-knit island community passions also run high.

These were my thoughts on it after I had read it:

What a magnificent book - I never wanted it to end. Greig has such a delightful way with language, whether local Scots or English. He is also a poet and this is very evident in his lyrical prose. In Another Light is the moving story of two men - father and son. The son, recently recovering from a near-death illness becomes obsessed with learning more about his father's life before he met his mother. The novel is set partly in Penang, where the father served as a medical officer, and partly in Orkney, where the son is working on a renewable energy project. The story of the father twists and turns and at times runs parallel to the son's life until it all comes together in the last few pages. It is a fast moving plot and the mystery surrounding his father is revealed clue by clue, with a final twist to the mystery right at the end.

Available on Amazon as ebook and in paperback.

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International Women´s Day 2020

6/3/2020

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International Women's Day, whose theme this year is “I Am Generation Equality: Realising Women’s Rights,” is celebrated on the 8th March. It was first organised in 1909 in New York by the Socialist Party of America to draw attention to women’s rights, and to bolster the demand for women’s suffrage. For years the day was associated with Socialist and Communist movements; in 1936, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibárruri, a leading member of the Spanish Communist Party, headed a commemorative march through Madrid. Then in the 1960s the feminist movement adopted the day as their own, and later in the 70s and 80s, it grew in popularity as more and more women called for equal rights, equality of pay and protection against domestic violence.

Now International Women’s Day is celebrated across the world; in some countries it is a day of celebration, and in others a day of protest; in 2007 a women’s rally in Iran was broken up by police and many people were arrested. In Spain, on International Women’s Day last year, hundreds of women went on strike, either staying away from work or abandoning their normal domestic duties, leaving their husbands to care for the children or the elderly.

Although the situation of equality for women varies greatly from country to country, here in western Europe women have achieved much of what they wanted, especially in Spain. Spanish women have come a long way since the death of Franco, but sometimes it is good to look at the past and see just how far that is.

When I first moved to Spain, I decided to write a book about the lives of women under the dictatorship. I called it Daughters of Spain.

Before the Spanish Civil War, women had gained many rights: they had the vote, and were given full legal status within the state. They could have their own bank account, adultery was no longer a crime and abortion was legalised. Women were allowed free access to the labour market, some limited maternity leave, and the length of the working day was reduced to eight hours, leaving women with more time to work in the home. All that changed when Franco came to power and I found it heart rending to listen to some of the things the women whom I interviewed told me. Like, “J” who was not allowed to have her name put on her baby’s birth certificate because she was unmarried, and subsequently had no rights whatsoever regarding her own child. And “L,” whose husband kept her virtually a prisoner for forty years, without friends and family. Or “MJ” who was divorced, and concluded our interview with the words: ‘Am I happy? Yes, I’m happy with what I’ve done, but truly happy? I don’t know. At least now I make the decisions; first it was my father making decisions for me, then my boyfriend, then my husband; now I make the decisions.’

Will this Sunday be a day of protest or celebration? One of the main issues for women throughout the world is domestic violence. In Spain last September women came out in protest over a summer of violence where 19 women were killed by a husband or partner. By the end of 2019 there had been 55 fatalities. Already this year thirteen women have been killed by their partners or husbands. And that is despite the law against domestic violence that was passed in 2004.
And Spain is not the only country in Europe. In fact it is well down the league table of these horrific crimes, below the UK, France and Germany.

Whatever you do to celebrate International Women’s Day, whether you are 65+ or a teenager, remember that here in Europe, women have a voice. Maybe women haven’t achieved all that they would like, but at least they are going in the right direction and that’s something to celebrate.

By the way, did you know that there’s an International Men’s Day as well? It’s on 19th November. Can’t say I'd heard about it before, but it's focus is on men's and boy's health, improving gender relations, promoting gender equality, and highlighting positive male role models. Sounds good.

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Interview with Melissa Addey

20/2/2020

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Melissa Addey is an author, speaker and mother of two. I am particularly pleased to have her here today, on my blog, because her passions are so similar to my own. Thank you Melissa, for finding the time in your very busy life to talk to me today.

Q. Tell us a bit about yourself, Melissa. When did you realise that you wanted to be a writer?
I read a huge amount as a child and learnt to read very fast, so I got through books at a terrific rate. I used to write a little bit as a child and teenager, then began to write more once I was in my twenties and thirties. But it took me until I was forty to go full time as an author and start publishing. I’m just about to finish a PhD in Creative Writing which I’ve done over the past three years which has been a lot of fun and (I hope) also improved my craft. It’s a huge joy to write for a living.

Q. Many of your books are set in historical periods. I know from experience how important it is to get the history right, and that means a lot of research. What attracted you to historical fiction?
I think in the past there were more restrictions on behaviour and more sudden turns of fortune or changes in rulers and that creates a lot of interesting bases for historical fiction. My first series, the Moroccan Empire, is set in 11th century Morocco and follows one man, Yusuf bin Tashfin, creating a Muslim empire across North Africa and Andalusia, in just a few decades, completing changing the existing power structure. Women were more restricted in what they could do or be and so the women on the historical record were often very unusual, interesting people. Yusuf’s queen was called Zaynab and a 12th century text describes her like this: “In her time there was none such as she – none more beautiful or intelligent or witty... she was married to Yusuf, who built Marrakech for her...” – what an introduction! I love doing the research, it can take months and even years while I write a whole series. I come to each era knowing nothing at all and having to start from scratch, everything from politics down to what to eat for breakfast, so it’s a real education! My house is beginning to overflow with research books, but it’s so hard to let go of them even when you’ve finished a series, they’ve become old friends.

Q. What do you look out for on your research trips?
It’s all about the feel of a place, I take hardly any notes (that’s for my reference books and studying time), I just soak everything up. When I was in Morocco, I loved the camels and their grumpy noises when we rode on them. One of them became a minor character and a real friend to my heroine. The food, the smells, the call to prayer, the weather, the sound of the language, all of that. It’s a very sensory experience. In Marrakesh I saw one of the last oral storytellers in Morocco, I was entranced even though I didn’t understand what he was saying, it was like a glimpse of a past world. I dedicated one of the books in the series to him. I love research trips; they make the past I’m imagining come alive. The only problem is when modern people will keep walking in front of you! I’ve learnt to get up very, very early so I can have places to myself. It’s magical.

Q. Who or what inspires you to write a particular book?
I call it ‘the footnotes of history’ – it’s always a small mention of something or an odd gap in the historical record that draws my attention and demands a bit more research… and then some more, until it becomes a fully-fledged idea. With my Moroccan series there was an odd choice where Yusuf bin Tashfin, having created a vast Muslim empire covering North Africa and Andalusia, then gave that empire to the son of a Christian slave girl. He had a lot of other children he could have chosen from (including those of his queen Zaynab, who was a co-creator of that empire) and he picked a very quiet studious son, who ultimately lost the empire. It seemed a very odd choice on a number of levels and I ended up writing a possible explanation.

Q. Tell us a bit about your latest book, does it have a historical setting or is it set in modern times?
Historical, it’s called Do Not Awaken Love and is the fourth and final novel in my Moroccan Empire series. It pulls all the threads together but can also be read as a standalone novel. It’s about a Spanish Christian woman sold as a slave to Morocco and how she ends up being a mother to the heir of a Muslim empire. The title comes from the Song of Solomon and it’s a journey of discovery for her as she moves from being very certain her own religion is best to opening up to friendships and love for people from other religions and cultures, but still holds onto her own life’s direction. It’s a lesson in love for her, in the wider sense. It’s due out next month. It’s a strange feeling when you come to the end of a series: it’s time to go but you feel a bit sorry to leave that time and place and those characters.

Q. When you’re not writing, what leisure time activities or hobbies do you enjoy?
Reading! And going to the cinema, so it’s storytelling all the way! I also enjoy travelling and most of my ideas for books have started or been developed by trips to the locations. My Moroccan Empire series started life in a small paragraph in a Lonely Planet guide to Morocco, which gave information on traditional Moroccan (Berber/Amazigh) jewellery and I thought it sounded so fascinating that it would be great to have a book where each chapter involves the lead character receiving a piece of jewellery, symbolising that stage of her story. That became A String of Silver Beads and kickstarted the whole series as well as my writing career. I have two little kids and I co-opt them as research assistants, they help me cook recipes from an era or try out things like oil lamps and other items from the past, depending on the era I’m researching.

Q. Who are your favourite authors? Are you swayed by particular genres?
My holy trinity is Terry Pratchett, Stephen King and Philippa Gregory, but my favourite book is The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. That’d be a no, then! I think I value storytelling and voice over genre, when I’m reading. I don’t read any other horror except King, for example, I just really like the way he writes about everyday life and then takes it one step further at a time and by the time you’ve realised it’s horror, it’s too late, you’re caught up in the story. I was so sad when Pratchett died, the thought of all the books he could have written, the topics he would have brought his own voice and insights to, is awful. I find Philippa Gregory really good on emotion, on what it feels like to get ever deeper into a dangerous situation, for example. And The Grapes of Wrath is an astonishing mix of enraged almost-journalism looking at a national situation (the Great Depression of the 1930s) alongside the pinpoint specificity of one fictional family enduring that but managing to inject everything from warmth to humour to utter tragedy in their daily lives as their journey proceeds. It’s a masterclass in writing.

Q. I see you are a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, do you have any particular advice for authors who are just starting?
Read lots and write lots. Reading gives you a sense of the different styles and craft options available to you. If you read all the great mythology from different eras and cultures it embeds an archetypal storyline in you. If you read different authors, it shows you how to write in different ways (everything from what tense to use, to how to manage the passing of time, for example) as well as what is desired and enjoyed in your particular genre by the reader. The more you write, the better you get, without even noticing it yourself, but your readers will.

When it comes time to get published, read up on traditional and self-publishing and make an informed choice on what you think would best suit you. I love self-publishing because I enjoy the business side as well as the creative side (and I like choosing my own covers!).

If you’d like to try Melissa's writing, you can download The Cup for FREE from her website www.melissaaddey.com; it’s a novella that kickstarts her Moroccan Empire series and is the story of a healer who makes an impossible vow and ends up serving Zaynab, queen to Yusuf.

You can also try The Consorts, which introduces her Forbidden City series, free on Amazon. http://getbook.at/TheConsorts

Melissa's latest novel, 'Do Not Awaken Love' is the final book in the Moroccan series and is on promotion at 99p on 25th February.

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23/1/2020

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Happy New Year to you all. I hope 2020 brings all that you could wish for. As far as I’m concerned it can’t be worse than 2019 when I lost my husband, my best friend of almost thirty years. So for me this last year has been a time of readjustment which included selling my house and buying another one all within the space of a month. Pretty exhausting but it certainly is nice to have it all over quickly. So why am I telling you all this? Well, it’s to explain why I have decided to have a book launch for my latest historical novel, The Pirate, even though it’s been available for sale since November. There just hasn’t been time (or the inclination) to do it before.

The launch and book signing of The Pirate has been arranged for 21st February at 17.00 in the Bookworld bookshop in Puerto Banus. ( Edf. Marina Banús 1-2, Calle Ramón Areces, Local 15, 29660 Marbella, Málaga) I hope all of you that live in the area will pop in to say hello.

BookWorld in Puerto Banus is an excellent bookshop with a wonderful range of stock, but it is one of a dying breed - an English bookshop in Spain. When I first starting writing, 14 years ago, there were a number of BookWorlds, in Velez-Málaga, Fuengirola and Marbella. There were two excellent bookshops in Gibraltar and quite a few others in the area. They have all closed. The rise of ebooks has contributed to that. I know from my own sales that most people buy their books in ebook format; they are cheaper, easier to carry about and they are always to hand. But some readers still like the feel of a book between their fingers. There is a substance to it that makes one read more carefully, with more attention. It is easy to skim over a digital text but somehow the printed page makes one slow down.
Having just moved house, as I mentioned, I was faced with how to home my thousand or so books. 'Get rid of most of them,' my well-meaning friends advised. 'You're not going to read them all.' 'Give yourself more space.' They were being sensible. Some of the books were the original Penguin paperbacks, orange, battered, their pages yellowed and covered in dust. Many of them had belonged to my parents, some containing loving wishes for a Christmas or birthday-no birthday was complete without a book as a present in our home. But how could I explain to them that it would be like throwing out old friends? My books are not just paper and ink; they are unique worlds, each one containing a dozen different characters. As I tried valiantly to organise them into their reduced space, I realised that I would sooner have untidy bookshelves than empty ones. Now the last of the boxes has been emptied and the last book stacked. Only one problem, will I ever be able to find the book I want when I want it? My only solution had been to sort them by size! So if I want a particular novel by Ian McEwan, I need to remember its dimensions!

A quick reminder about this new trilogy, THE CITY OF DREAMS:

It follows on from the al-Andalus series but with a new generation of the family taking the stage and an explanation of the political developments in the country. This time the action is set in the popular city of Málaga. Although Málaga doesn’t have such international cultural fame as cities such as Córdoba and Granada, it has an equally rich past and every day new archeological discoveries are coming to light. Only recently the workers on building the new Metro found the extensive remains of some ancient tanneries.

In Book 1 ‘The Apothecary,’ we meet up again with the younger members of the family who had escaped from the besieged city of Córdoba.
Makoud, now a middle-aged apothecary, has come to Málaga with his family to work. Shortly after they arrive they hear of the sudden death of the caliph Yahya I and rumours that he was poisoned. Makoud is worried that the poison used by the assassins was bought from his shop. His son, Umar, now a soldier in the caliph’s army, decides to investigate but he underestimates the power of the people behind the assassination, and instead he finds himself accused of murder and locked in the dungeons. His father, family and friends pool all their resources to try to help him but the closer they get to the truth, the greater the danger they are in.

In Book 2 ‘The Pirate,’ Bakr, the shipbuilder is kidnapped by pirates. It was interesting for me to research pirate life at the time and work out the sorts of places that they would hang out when they weren’t at sea. (I owe a debt of gratitude to the excellent book Pirates by Helen Hollick for much of the information I gleaned about pirate ways.)
This fast moving and exciting historical novel takes the reader into the medieval world of the merchants and seafarers who sailed along the western coast of the Mediterranean, and the pirates who terrorised them. Early one morning, the ambitious pirate captain, al-Awar, makes a lightning raid on the shipyard in Málaga and kidnaps Bakr, a master shipbuilder, and two of his workmen. Before anyone can do anything about it, they have disappeared. No-one has any idea why the pirates have taken them or where they have gone, but everyone agrees that only one of two fates await them: death or slavery.

In Book 3 ‘The Scribe,’ we meet other members of the family and the story continues. Book 3 should be out in the Spring. Unless I decide to rearrange my bookshelves again. The Dewey system maybe?

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An imaginary interview with Makoud ibn Ahmad, born in the year 1000 AD

20/1/2020

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The river Guadalquivir

Q As-salama alaykum, Makoud.
A Peace be upon you also.

Q Can you tell me a little about your life. How did you become a successful apothecary, a man respected by the Royal Household here in Malaqah?
A It’s a long story. I am not originally from this taifa. When I was born there were no taifas; Qurtubah, my home city, was the capital of al-Andalus and the country had only one ruler, the khalifa al-Hisham II. Now al-Andalus is split into many small taifas and each one is ruled by its own prince.

Q What was life like in Qurtubah when you were growing up?
A At first life was good. I had a normal childhood; I went to school, I attended the mosque on Fridays with my father and my brothers and I played with my friends. There was plenty of food and people could wander about the city and feel safe. Qurtubah was prosperous and well known for its wonderful libraries. People came from all over the world to visit the city. My cousin, Salma, was a scribe and worked in one of the libraries. It was a peaceful place to grow up in and I was a happy child. We lived in a lovely old house by the edge of the river Guadalguivir with my father and mother, my grandmother and my brothers and sisters. I used to fish in the river with my father. I was the youngest of the family, and both my brothers were working, so they didn’t have much time for me. One was a doctor and the other was a soldier.

The ruins of Madinat al-Zahra

Q  I believe your father was a good friend of the khalifa.
A  Yes, my father, Ahmad, became his personal falconer when he was still an apprentice in Madinat al Zahra. He taught the khalifa, who was younger than him, how to hunt with the falcons and care for them. They remained friends for a while until my father moved to Qurtubah and got married. But he always considered him a friend and was loyal to him when everyone else deserted him.

Q  I am surprised that you didn’t become a falconer like your father.
A  My father would have liked that but I wanted to be a soldier, like my brother and my grandfather.

Q  So what happened?
A  My mother forbade it. She said that one soldier in the family was enough; she wasn’t going to lose two sons to the army. So I began helping my great-aunt, Layla. She knew so much about plants, especially herbs. She taught me which ones to use for healing and which to use for fragrances.

Q  And cooking?
A  Yes that too but I was more interested in their other uses. Many are poisonous if used incorrectly. They have to be picked at a certain time, dried in certain ways, prepared carefully. I found it fascinating, so I began to study as an apothecary.

Q  Was that in Qurtubah?
A  No, by then we’d moved to Ardales. Qurtubah was in ruins and the khalifa was in prison. We were lucky to escape with our lives. The city had been under siege for two years and people were starving. A terrible sickness had swept through the city and killed many people, but we were fortunate not to catch it, probably because my brother who was a doctor, gave us good advice. He adopted a system of quarantine at his hospital and gradually they got the disease under control.

Ardales

Q So what happened to you next?
A Well, as I said, the city was surrounded by Berber soldiers and the khalifa was powerless to do anything. Things looked very bad and then the governor of the city decided to surrender. It was a mistake. The soldiers slaughtered thousands of the citizens and sacked all the libraries and universities. Nothing remained. We grabbed what few possessions we could carry and my family and I escaped.

Q But how? Why weren’t you and your family killed by the soldiers?
A I suppose it doesn’t matter now if I tell you what happened: we escaped through an old tunnel under one of the Christian churches. My cousin’s friend, who also worked in the library, told her about it. Once we were out of the city we headed straight for Ardales, because my father had some relatives there. It was a long journey and we were terrified of being caught by the soldiers but once we were there we were safe. I continued to study with Layla and eventually began to work as an apothecary.

Q That doesn’t explain how you came to be living in Malaqah and how you are so well respected at court.
A Ardales was a very sleepy little town. I tried to settle down there, to please my parents, but I was restless. I married a lovely girl and she gave me the most beautiful daughter in the world. I should have been content with what I had but I wanted sons. Every man must have sons. But Abal, my wife, had almost died when my daughter was born and because of that could bear me no more children. The law would have allowed me to divorce her, but I couldn’t do that. I loved her. So I took a second wife and she bore me three sons.

Q So it worked out well for both of them.
A Not really. They are jealous of each other and bicker all the time. Basma is jealous of Abal because she is wife number one, and Abal is jealous of Basma because she had three sons. I try to keep out of their way as much as possible. When my mother was alive they kept their jealousy to themselves, but now Abal is in charge, it is impossible to control them.

Q But weren’t they happy about moving to Malaqah?
A Not at all. But for the first time they could agree on something, and that was that I was making a huge mistake. But I’d been itching for a chance to leave Ardales for years; I felt that I was growing old too quickly living there. I needed city life again. So when my son-in-law died of the sickness, I decided it was time for the rest of the family to move to Malaqah and have a new life. My sons needed work and there wasn’t much for them there. I had a Jewish friend who had moved from Qurtubah to Malaqah some years ago and by chance I heard that he was still living there, so I got in touch with him and he helped me to find a suitable shop to set up my business.

Q Right outside the alcazaba?
A Yes, it is in a perfect spot and I have many customers who are from the palace. But it is not without its disadvantages.

Q Such as?
A You asked me how I am so well known at court, it is because of something that happened not long after I arrived in Malaqah. The khalifa died in mysterious circumstances and it was rumoured that he had been poisoned by poisonous herbs from my shop. It’s a complicated story, but with the help of my sons I was able to disprove the rumour and help them identify the khalifa’s killer. I and my family have been well treated by the royal family ever since.

Q Do you have any regrets about moving here?
A Absolutely none. It is a vibrant and cosmopolitan port and I love living here. My sons have made good livings and soon I hope that the eldest will be married. In a few years I will retire and my second son, Ibrahim, will take over the shop, and hopefully his son after him. Despite what my wives say on the matter, I know I made the right decision by moving to Malaqah.

NOTE:
Makoud is the main character in the first novel in the City of Dreams series, The Apothecary.

I have used the Moorish names for Málaga and Córdoba as they were at the time.

Books 1 and 2 of The City of Dreams series are available on Amazon.

Book 3, The Scribe will be out in the Spring.

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Islamic influences and inventions

9/12/2019

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Many things that we take for granted in our daily life were passed down from the medieval Muslim world. From the way we eat, to the soap we use to wash our faces, a host of inventions have shaped our life style. We can’t underestimate the importance of Muslim influence on Europe and Spain in particular.
Coffee, for example—a cup of which is essential for me to start the day, and which I always thought originated in the Americas—is supposed to have been first discovered by an Arab goatherd in Ethiopia, who noticed that his animals became very lively after eating a particular wild berry. He decided to try it for himself and boiled some up to make the first coffee. Millions of people have enjoyed it ever since.
As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention and it is very true. Cleanliness is stipulated in Islamic religious teachings as essential before prayer, so there was a constant demand in the Muslim world for decent quality soap. They needed to improve on the crude soap used by the Romans, so they mixed vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide, adding some sweet smelling herbs and produced a soap almost identical to that which is used today. One of the things the Muslims always found hard to understand was the Christian attitude to cleanliness and their strong body odour.
A putrid smell permeated Christian homes as well, because their floors were made of earth and covered by rushes, or rush mats which were changed infrequently. Consequently, over the years the filth accumulated under the rushes and began to smell. In Muslim Spain and other parts of the Muslim world, carpets and rugs woven from wool, and sometimes silk, were used to cover the floor. Their intricate designs and bright colours made the carpets decorative as well as functional and the idea of spreading carpets on the floor soon spread throughout Europe.

In the 9th century, an Arabic scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan invented the process of distillation, and as many of his processes and equipment are still used today, he could be said to be the founder of chemistry. Although his discovery of the method of distillation meant that alcoholic spirit could be made, the Muslim religion forbade them from drinking it. One wonders if ibn Hayyan just had the odd taste himself.
In the middle of the 10th century, the Sultan of Egypt wanted someone to invent a pen that wouldn’t stain his hands with ink, so one ingenious man came up with the fountain pen, which functioned on exactly the same lines as today’s fountain pen with a small reservoir to hold the ink.

The garden was always a special place for the people of Muslim Spain, and their palaces and homes demonstrate this; you only have to visit the wonderful gardens in the Alhambra in Granada to realise how much care and attention they gave to them. For the Muslim in al-Andalus it wasn’t enough to just have kitchen and herb gardens to provide fruit, vegetables and aromatic herbs, they also built pleasure gardens for meditation and tranquility. Beautiful spaces with running water features, ponds filled with golden carp, marble pathways and flowers and shrubs that gave colour and fragrance to the garden. To them they were places of beauty, somewhere to sit and read or simply relax.

The list of inventions bequeathed to us by medieval Muslim scientists could go on and on: the pin-hole camera (Camera Obscura), the game of chess, the crank-shaft, the combination lock, the art of quilting, the windmill, the technique of vaccination, even the modern cheque, which was invented in the 9th century to remove the risk of transporting large sums of money over dangerous territory, and many surgical instruments which have not changed their design in a thousand years. In the Middle Ages Muslim scientists were prolific in their inventions and their writings.

Many new ideas were brought to Spain by a man called Ali ibn Nafi who arrived in al-Andalus in the 9th century from Bagdad. You may recognise him better by his nickname of Ziryab, the blackbird, so called because of his dark skin and his beautiful singing voice.
I have written about Ziryab before, concentrating on his influence on the Umayyad court on Córdoba in terms of fashion, hairstyle, eating habits and food, but he was primarily a singer, a poet, and a composer. He also played the oud. When he arrived in al-Andalsu he went straight to the emir, looking for a new life and a way to further his career. It was a good move. He soon became immensely popular with Abd al-Rahman II, and was paid a large salary to stay at the court, where his influence touched all parts of society.
Not only did he entertain the emir with his playing and singing, but he also set up a music school and trained many young musicians. It is said the Andalusian classical music dates back to the emirate of Cordoba, to the time when Zirab was working there.

One Sunday morning a friend rang to tell me that there was a programme on the BBC’s Radio 3 about early music and they were looking at the music of al-Andalus. He warned me it was rather long, almost three hours.
The programme was mostly examples of medieval classical music, along with information about the subject and interspersed with interviews from various experts. Some things surprised me. It’s easy to imagine that the only time Muslim al-Andalus and Christian Spain came into contact was on the battlefield, but apparently there were many Muslim and Jewish musicians in the Christian courts of medieval Spain, where Arabic music was greatly appreciated. The spirit of cultural convivencia continued in al-Andalus during the Middle Ages with examples of Jewish poets writing in Arabic for a Christian audience. In other aspects of the arts this cross cultural intermingling was also very evident in design and architecture. As with much of the history of that time, information is sparse and music historians have to rely a lot on conjecture, oral traditions and the interpretation of more recent examples of the type of music that is played in North Africa and the Middle East today.
We do know some of the instruments that were used at the time, from carvings and sculptures, like the one on the Gate of Glory in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, showing two men playing an organistram, an early version of the hurdy-gurdy. Another image of that particular instrument is in the museum of Rouen, from the abbey of St Georges de Boscherville, with two women, a lady playing the keys and her maid turning the handle. The manufacture and design of musical instruments began in al-Andalus in the 10th century: lutes, rebecs (bowed stringed instruments which were possibly the fore-runner to the violin) guitars and nakers ( pairs of round drums) soon spread across Europe.

We also know of the songs that were sung in al-Andalus because many poems have survived in the anthologies of famous poets, such as ibn Bassam, an eleventh century poet and historian. Poetry was a much admired skill, and there were both men and women poets, although fewer of the names of female poets have survived. One Muslim princess had her favourite poem embroidered into her dress.The people of al-Andalus made no distinction between a poet or a song writer, so we can assume that a great deal of the poems that have been saved may well have been sung, rather than recited. Many of the songs were often repetitive, sometimes no more than one line, and usually accompanied by the oud, the forerunner to the lute, or by the rhythm of a beating drum and clapping. Much of the music was lively and it is easy to imagine the swirling skirts of the dancers as they danced to the vibrant tunes. In the earlier years the fashion was for an individual singer to entertain, but by the eleventh century groups were singing in polyphonic unison.
A good singing voice was highly prized and it is recorded that during the thirteenth century, old women would teach singing to slave girls, so that they could perform in the royal courts. These groups of female singers and sometimes musicians, contributed greatly to the growth and development of literature and music in al-Andalus.

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Islamic influences and inventions

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