If the storytelling had been more incisive, The Sufi Storyteller could have been a book I’d love
When it comes to books, I have a few hot buttons. For example, if I come across a book about stories and/or storytelling, I will snatch it up immediately. If a book is set in Afghanistan and its environs, I will be interested, though the harshness of the society there leaves me near tears. And if a book is a not-very-gory piece of crime fiction, I want it. I like knowing that justice can be served, even if it happens only in fiction.
Three weeks ago, my editor gave me a book to review that encompassed all three of the hot buttons I described in the paragraph above: The Sufi Storyteller by Faiqa Mansab. The book is about Layla, a US-based scholar and teacher who delves into the meanings of the stories told by the Sufis. At 33 years old, she has made quite a name for herself in the field. But Layla’s main purpose in life is to seek the birth mother who had abandoned her when she was a child.
As the story begins, Layla believes she has found her birth mother — Mira, a famous storyteller. But Layla hasn’t approached Mira yet. She just attends Mira’s storytelling sessions obsessively, even going so far as to quit her job at one university and teach at another simply because Mira will be conducting sessions there. This is why Layla never paid much attention to the murder of a woman at her previous university — she was packing to leave at the time. But when the corpse of another woman is found in Layla’s own teaching space at the new university, and then soon after, a third murdered woman, Layla’s own student, is found in Layla’s own home, all three bodies arranged with the symbols of Sufi storytelling, she knows the murders are connected, somehow, to her.
Who would commit such heinous crimes in connection with Layla, and why? You would imagine that this would be the primary plot of The Sufi Storyteller. Unfortunately, for the first two thirds of the book, the story just skims over the murders, the author apparently more concerned with the topic of stories as an instrument of truth-telling than her own book as a piece of crime fiction. Though it does pick up towards the end, with suspects on the line and Mira and Layla having to face certain truths — and the killer — I was more relieved when I turned the last page than sated. Which is a pity. If the storytelling had been more incisive, The Sufi Storyteller could have been a book I’d love.
The Sufi Storyteller
By Faiqa Mansab
Penguin Random House India
pp. 309; Rs 599
