The Bleeding Hearts and Hopes of Migrants Beneath a ‘Sky the Moon Cannot Cross’

 

Novels about the migrant experience do not shy away from the brutal, heartrending hardships that come with the journey, whether the struggles of reaching their destinations or finding stability after arrival. Among immigrants, one thing propels them forward: a dream to survive, succeed, and quench the longing in their souls.

 

With this in mind, Sudanese author Atef al-Hajj Saeed’s “Exceptional Fatal Loves” (Andalib Publications, 2023), a collection of stories — perhaps more aptly described by Amir Taj al-Sir in Al Quds Al Arabi* as a “series of stories” — broaches the subject from a uniquely intimate lens. What dangers can the throes of passion pose for those whose lives are already surrounded by danger? Intertwining the risks of migrant life with the risqué, Saeed follows a disparate cast of characters whose lives are interlinked not just by the futility of their goals but also by the weight of their passions. For some, love becomes a driving force; for others, it is the force that drives them to their end. Happy endings are unreachable dreams in this novel, where love proves to be ‘fatal’ for its characters, “some of whom are worthy of sympathy, and others who are not,” in the words of Amir Taj al-Sir.

 

“Exceptional Fatal Loves” occurs in the French Calais Jungle, a refugee and immigrant encampment on the city's outskirts. There, poor immigrants dream of crossing the English Channel into Europe. “But what distinguishes this novel is that the author does not stop at describing the difficulties, horrors, and tragedies of migration along the way, but rather addresses the struggle, psychological torment, and internal dispersion that the migrant experiences after arriving in Europe,” writes Taj al-Sir. Living in this ‘jungle’ under a hill “whose sky the moon cannot cross,” these migrants’ painful pasts intersect with their current struggles, especially as they navigate matters of the heart.

 

In this desolate environment, Ibn Auf is a distributor of dreams. A smuggler, he nourishes and then preys on the hopes of migrants’ desires to cross the sea, encouraging them to follow their dreams and make the dangerous journeys. He convinces the abandoned, heartbroken Rasta, a Sudanese musician whose lover Randa left with another man across the English Channel, to pay for his smuggling services to chase after her. Rasta’s failed love becomes the catalyst for his tragic ending, as he cannot fulfill his love or his dreams of a stable life even after crossing the Channel. “He is a nobody in this exile, yet simultaneously brimming with hope. There is a lost lover, a wretched life, and no progress in the morning or the darkening night. He waits, seemingly born to wait for something that never happens,” writes Taj al-Sir.

 

Other characters do not fare any better. Cody, a migrant hailing from the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, also dreams of crossing into Europe, but his dreams stagnate. He falls into an unrequited love with Elodie, a Red Cross volunteer who will never return his feelings. Even the morally dubious Ibn Auf finds himself ensnared in a love that dooms him, pouring his affections into a girl named Joanna who lives in the encampment with her family, where she runs a business offering love to the downtrodden migrants in exchange for money. Such a transactional relationship will never satisfy his true desires for her, yet he falls for this performance of love, losing sight of his profession and life. As Taj al-Sir puts it, “Ultimately, these are writings that derive meaning from the meaninglessness rooted in aborted dreams.”

 

Some characters in the novel are inspired by real people, drawn from Atef al-Hajj Saeed’s time living with migrants in the Calais Jungle, where he worked as a translator. In the words of Moatasem al-Shaer in the online media platform Geeska, “The novel’s most important feature remains its semantic richness, resulting from the skillful use of symbols and its use of intense poetic language.”

 

Muhammad Jaddi Hassan also praises the novel’s prose in his review in Al Modon**: “Atef does not recount the suffering of migrants on the long journey, nor what migrants endure at sea and in deserts, but rather what migrants feel, sense, and experience from within. This lies in the beauty and importance of his writing.”

 

As for the tragic fates lying in wait for the characters of “Exceptional Fatal Loves,” Saeed’s decision to interweave their stories through the threads of futile love goes beyond surface-level depictions of the painful migrant experience. In Hassan’s view, the author may be drawing from the ideas of psychologist Theodore Reich, who believes that people fall in love because they are dissatisfied and self-doubtful. He says, “We fall in love when we feel inadequate and fall short of the ideal we aspire to achieve. Reich's statement rings true for people on this spectrum: faced with dashed hopes, an unknown future, and a distant past, they all fall in love.”