The Patience Stone: Atiq Rahimi

What a book!! In one word exhilarating. The book does not delve much into time and space where it is located. It seems to be somewhere where people are engaging in fights in the name of Islam. The entire book is a woman’s monologue with her comatose husband who took a bullet to his neck in his war for God. It starts with the lament of a loving, dutiful wife pleading to God to bring back her man. Because she realizes full well the danger of being left alone in such a society on her own with two young girls. But slowly as the days go by with no sign of her man getting well, her frustration gives way to her honest acknowledgment of things she was not happy about. She gets to voice her opinion for the first time and finds it liberating. She breaks the shackles of being the ideal woman and comes forth with her faults. She tells her husband what she feels about her life, her disappointments with him, and her aspirations. Her husband becomes her patience stone which absorbs all her pain. Her revelation paves a way for her liberation. She feels free from the need to be the vessel of someone else’s honor. Her awe and admiration for her aunt who works as a prostitute throws light on her views on sexuality. She is shown as a sexual being with her aspirations. Her bonding with a young boy who suffers at the hand of others points a finger to the filth in the society. Through the personal life of the nameless protagonist, Rahimi throws a light on the status of women in such societies where honor is intrinsically linked to women’s bodies, where women are treated as objects devoid of agency. Her assertion as a human being with an individuality intact is refreshing and gives hope to people. It humanizes women which is a big thing in repressive patriarchal societies. While Rahimi says it was easier for him to write such a book in his second language French and not Dari. The translator did a good job.