“THIS WOVEN KINGDOM” by Tahereh Mafi

Tahereh Mafi is the modern Sheherazade. And I stand with my opinion.
Highly accomplished as a writer, she continuously amazes me with her novels.

I enjoyed reading “This woven kingdom” enormously because the writer made me realize how we justify our behaviors as people and as countries.
The language used by the writer is sophisticated, the main characters are aware and mindful of how they feel the words in their bodies, and the diversity of opinions reminded me again about today’s world controversies in all matters.

I liked the story because when I read about the war between Clay (“human beings, they called themselves”) and Jinn, I remembered the wars I saw even on TV where the invading nation was always better than the one being invaded:
“For centuries before the bloodshed between Jinn and Clay had begun, Jinn had built their kingdoms in the most uninhabitable lands, in the most brutal climates–if only to be far from the reach of the Clay civilisation. They’d wanted to exist quietly, peacefully, in a state of near invisibility.
But Clay, who had long considered it their divine right–no, duty–to slaughter the beings they saw only as scions of the devil, had mercilessly hunted Jinn for millennia, determined to expunge the earth of their existence.”

I liked to read that when a girl named Alizeh was chosen by magic to liberate Jinn, her parents decided to train her seriously for her role in the prophecy:
“Alizeh’s mother and father had thought it critical to teach their child not only to care and clean for her own home, but to have basic knowledge of most all technical and mechanical labor; they’d wanted her to know the weight of a day’s work.
But then, they’d only meant to teach her a valuable lesson–they’d never meant for her to earn her living this way.

While Alizeh had spent her younger years being honed by masters and tutors, so, too, had her parents humbled her in preparation for her imagined future, insisting always upon the greater good, the essential quality of compassion.”

Hunted by assassins, Alizeh is forced to work as a low-class servant for Clay’s wealthy people, who treat her atrociously just because she was born in the conquered kingdom. And I couldn’t help thinking about all the Romanians who weren’t respected when they worked in foreign countries, and I’m also thinking about the immigrants who chose to work now in my country:
“In her weaker moments Alizeh longed to lash out, to allow her anger to shatter the cage of her self-control. She was stronger than any housekeeper who struck her; she was capable of greater force, greater strength and speed and resilience than any Clay body that oppressed her.
And yet.
Violence alone, she knew, would accomplish nothing. Anger without direction was only hot air, there and gone.”

Kindle, 2022