The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing

by Darina Al-Joundi, Mohamed Kacimi, Marjolijn de Jager (Translator)

Overview

The Homeland actress’s “recollections of her unconventional youth in war-torn Beirut are heartbreaking yet humorous . . . in this unique” memoir (Publishers Weekly).

Raised in 1970s Lebanon on Charles Baudelaire, A Clockwork Orange, and fine Bordeaux, Darina Al-Joundi was encouraged by her unconventional father to defy all taboos. She spent her adolescence defying death in Beirut nightclubs as bombs fell across the city. The more oppressive the country became, the more drugs and anonymous sex she had, fueling the resentment directed at her daily by the same men who would spend the night with her.

As the war dies down, she begins to incur the consequences of her lifestyle. On his deathbed, her father’s last wish is for his favorite song, “Sinnerman” by Nina Simone, to be played at his funeral instead of the traditional suras of the Koran. When she does just that, the final act of defiance elicits a catastrophic response from her surviving family members.

In this dramatic true story, Darina Al-Joundi is defiantly passionate about living her life as a liberated woman, even if it means leaving everyone and everything behind in this “beautifully taut and relentlessly unemotional” memoir (Kirkus).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558616837
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	03/15/2011
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Darina Al-Joundi was born in Lebanon in 1968 to a Shiite Lebanese mother and a secular Syrian father. She began her acting career at age eight with Lebanese television. She left Beirut at thirty for Paris, where she wrote and performed Le jour où Nina Simone a cessé de chanter for the theater. The play caused a sensation at the Avignon festival, where it was hailed by the critics all over France. Her latest movie, Un homme perdu, by Daniel Arbid, was presented at the Director’s Fortnight of the 2007 Cannes Festival.

Mohammed Kacimi is an Algerian playwright and novelist. His writings include 1962, la Confession d’Abraham, and Terre sainte.

Marjolijn de Jager was born in Indonesia, raised in the Netherlands, and has been living in the US since 1958. She is a literary translator from French and Dutch to English, with a special interest in francophone African and Middle Eastern women writers. She has been awarded several NEH grants, a NEA translation grant, and is a Silver Winner of ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Award (2007). She is retired from a 30-year career of teaching French language and literature, as well as literary translation at NYU, where she continues to teach Dutch and French language.

Editorial Reviews

Actress Al-Joundi's recollections of her unconventional youth in war-torn Beirut are heartbreaking yet humorous. The daughter of a Syrian father who insisted his child not be held back by the traditional limitations imposed on women in the Middle East, Al-Joundi was encouraged to be independent. Her father refused to "label" his children as Muslim or Christian, telling Al-Joundi that she should choose for herself, but to never bow down to anyone. Al-Joundi was seven when the war in Lebanon began in 1975. Her family moved constantly, returning to Beirut whenever possible, and Al-Joundi joined the Red Cross as a nurse. "Hungry for everything, for sex, drugs, alcohol," she developed a cocaine habit, and it was only after her father's funeral—he insisted Nina Simone be played instead of readings from the Qur'an—that Al-Joundi ran afoul of other family members and was involuntarily committed; she soon realized that Beirut was no longer for her and moved to France. With her direct prose, Al-Joundi never wallows in the horrors or overplays the absurdity, instead striking a perfect balance in this unique account. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Actress Al-Joundi's recollections of her unconventional youth in war-torn Beirut are heartbreaking yet humorous... With her direct prose, Al-Joundi never wallows in the horrors or overplays the absurdity, instead striking a perfect balance in this unique account." —Publishers Weekly

"...beautifully taut and relentlessly unemotional... A pitiless, steely narrative, alternately heartbreaking and compelling." —Kirkus

"The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing is no coming-of-age tale framed by easy, charming reflections on lessons gained from turbulent times. Instead, it’s a feat that runs closer to the bone... The result is profound immediacy. Though readers experience the shock of abuse, even when the “music” stops, there is little doubt about Al-Joundi’s ferocious resolve—right up to the promise in the book’s final line." —Venus Zine

"The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing is an intense, harrowing, and deeply disturbing memoir of a woman's sustained resistance to the world around her. Darina Al-Joundi's story is told with such brutal immediacy, I found myself both moved and frightened. At once personal and historical, the book is the testament of an unrepentant rebel, who, in the end, has no choice but to leave everything and everyone behind her." —Siri Hustvedt, author of The Sorrows of an American

"Darina Al-Joundi's personal liberation became a conquest when it coincided with the civil war in Lebanon. To a merciless world she brings a merciless book."—Etel Adnan, author of Sitt Marie Rose

"Al-Joundi's book reconstitutes the misadventures of her youth in a style that is at once heart-breaking and very funny."—Nancy Huston, author of Fault Lines

From the Publisher

Actress, screenwriter, and filmmaker Al-Joundi has written a moving and poignant memoir of life before and during the Lebanese civil war (1975–90). The book opens with the funeral of Al-Joundi's father when the author, respecting her father's wishes, resists having the Koran read. Al-Joundi instead plays Nina Simone's "Save Me," a move that brings devastating consequences. Irreverent and fervently secular, Al-Joundi's father is a key figure in the author's life. During her upbringing, as she relates here, her father insisted that she strive for independence, resist gender norms and restrictions, and refuse to adhere to any religion. Al-Joundi describes coming of age in war-torn Beirut, a city saturated with violence, her adolescence replete with drugs, anonymous sex, and other transgressions. Al-Joundi's struggle against gender oppression and conflicts with her mother ultimately compelled her to leave Lebanon for France. VERDICT Al-Joundi manages to infuse humor into a disturbing narrative of brutality, war, and violence. The unconventional wisdom and feminist-leaning views of her father make this brief narrative a compelling and entertaining read that will appeal to a broad adult audience and to readers interested in women's rights.—Karen Okamoto, John Jay Coll. of Criminal Justice Lib., New York

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