THE SINGULARITY by Balsam Karam

Translated by Saskia Vogel

This astonishing novella opens with a scene as shocking as it is tragic. Having given up on finding her missing daughter, an unnamed woman jumps from the cliff near where the girl once worked. From there the story winds back, as we follow her obsessive search as seen through the eyes of her other children. They are refugees; struggling with a new land, a new language, othered. All their hopes are pinned on the corniche, where indigent kids can panhandle and prostitutes hustle, while rich tourists sip expensive wine nearby. It makes for a striking juxtaposition - rampant opportunity crashing against the walls of loss and despair - and alone would make for a satisfying book.

But there is a second arm to The Singularity, one that also plays with time and its ravaging of self. A pregnant woman, at the corniche for a business trip, witnesses the mother’s suicide. Not long after returning home, her child is stillborn. Karam shifts tonal gear, slipping into the second person with some wonderfully innovative formal acrobatics. The women’s stories intertwine to the point of blurring, leaving us with a distilled meditation on the despairs of motherhood, home and belonging. Brutal. Urgent. Exhilarating.

The Singularity by Balsam Karam (Tr. Saskia Vogel)
Text Publishing/Fitzcarraldo, 2024
181 pages