BAHIR

A Pakistani woman lives much of her life in the Middle East, facing many obstacles in her search for love and financial security, in this novel.

Sawera is born in Pakistan in 1978, and is immediately given up for adoption by her biological mother to her sister, then childless. After Sawera’s adoptive parents have two sons, she becomes the family scapegoat, often being beaten by her mother (as when the girl comes home early and catches her parent kissing a man who’s not her husband). Sawera craves acceptance through romance and gains a bad reputation in high school. Jumping into marriage at age 17, she slaves for her husband, Wasim, and his three brothers and father; bears three children; and soon looks for another escape. Like her father before her, she seeks a work visa in Saudi Arabia; leaving her husband behind, she takes her children abroad. The money is good, but working in Saudi Arabia, and later in Bahrain, as an expatriate is a constant scramble for visa extensions and being at the mercy of exploitative sponsors, some extracting money and others sexual favors. Sawera must often leave her kids in Pakistan with relatives while she works, divorces, marries, divorces again, and tries to become a beautician. In the end, her life gets on the right track at last. Sawera both experiences and causes suffering (her children are often lonely and left with unaffectionate caretakers), but Gumber (Dying to Live, 2017, etc.) tells her story as a matter of triumphal survival in harsh circumstances. Something like Becky Sharp, Sawera is a survivor who, despite guilt pangs, sees moralizing as hypocrisy, especially in a world where the rich and well-connected get away so easily with cheating and using the powerless. On occasion, Sawera isn’t very subtle about pulling the heartstrings: Her mother “beat me up so much that I carried the bruises for weeks. My real bruises took an even longer time to heal. The bruises to my soul.” Overall, though, she’s convincing, and admirable in her determination to improve life for herself and her kids.

A sometimes-melodramatic but compelling survivor’s story.