The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf

#308
Title: The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
Author: Mohja Kahf
Year: 2006
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
Country: Syria
448 pages

An awkwardly written novel that becomes more compelling as it gathers steam, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf is worth reading for content, though not for style. Kahf provides a look at Muslim communities in the Midwest and elsewhere, racism and sexism directed both to and from Muslims, and the immigrant's dislocation. The childhood sections are overly sentimental and do not ring as true as the adolescent and young adult portions. However, Kahf does a relatively good job of depicting the protagonist's stages of religious development, including both extremism and the later recognition of the limitations of her parents' enactment of Islam.

The writing was often wooden and self-conscious, at times loosening up in a way that suggests that the novel was constructed in parts, some ultimately more fluidly rendered than others. The first 2/3 would have been better served by editing out around 100-150 pages to tighten the action and lead more compellingly to the last third, which is, though episodic, more emotionally engaging.

The use of "girl" in the title is strange since, as is made clear by the cover, she has a tangerine scarf as a woman, not as a girl. It is also odd because one of the book's points is that the protagonist is an adult; though a case could be made for the title as ironic, there is no support for this interpretation in the novel.

Future editions would benefit from consistent use of italics (or not) for foreign words, as well as a spelling check for foreign words in languages other than Arabic. Both Spanish and Hebrew words are incorrectly or inconsistently spelled.