Output details

Into Suez

An historical novel, ten years in the making, Into Suez is set chiefly in the British-occupied Canal Zone of Egypt in 1948-56, the period running up to the ‘Suez Crisis’. Research included: (1) historical accounts of the British in Egypt since 1882, the Egyptian Revolution, Zionism and the declaration of the state of Israel, the Arab-Israeli War; works on imperialism and orientalism; personal memoir, e.g., Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks (2007); Elmer Berger’s Who Knows Better Must Say So (1955); Ali Salem’s A Drive to Israel: An Egyptian Meets His Neighbors (2001). The frame plot, set in 2003, elicits parallels between the Suez Crisis and the Iraq War: hence I researched accounts of current Western Middle Eastern policy; (2) copious oral and written testimony by British military Suez veterans (professional soldiers and conscripts), contacted through the website of the Suez Veterans Association: http://www.suezveteransassociation.org.uk/. Correspondents included Geoffrey Richards, who shared an unpublished memoir and back issues of Suez Canal News, culled from contemporary news articles. He answered questions about everything from Arabic music to motorcycles, supplying maps, tapes, scanned documents and little-known photographs. William Travers sent his unpublished memoir and responded to innumerable queries. Other Suez veteran correspondents were Ken Brock, Peter Evans and John Grant. These supplied authentic episodes: e.g., the dolphin-shoot, the squaddies’ destruction of an Arab melon harvest. (3) research trips to Egypt (2005, 2008), including sailing the Suez Canal; (4) radio broadcasts and filmed events, 1948-1956, including BBC News, Nasser’s speech initiating the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, a performance by revered Egyptian singer and nationalist, Oum Koulsoum; (5) personal photographs, memories and memorabilia from my father’s posting to Egypt 1949-51. I aimed to create a text that could be read palimpsestically against current Middle Eastern policy, evoking Doris Lessing’s question: What if we are a people who cannot learn