Kiss the Hand You Cannot Sever

by Adrienne Brady

My story is a non-fictional account that frequently reads like bizarre fiction of the two years I spent in Libya, 1993-95. At this time of extreme political tension I accepted a teaching post in Tripoli. A month after my arrival the UN renewed and tightened sanctions, an attempt was made to unseat Gaddafi and political turmoil infiltrated daily life. Under suspicion of working for the CIA, I was arrested, interrogated and eventually released to be kept under surveillance both in the environs of Tripoli where I lived and on my travels. The underlying reason for a accepting a contract in Libya was my keen interest in exploring a country that at that time was virtually impossible to get into. A residency was a passport to travel. Although at the start, my story includes aspects of daily life and the policies and politics that governed it, the focus is on travel. This is my passion. Libya has magnificent Roman sites overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as well as ancient tribal cities connecting trans-Saharan trading routes deep into the Sahara. What it didn t have was tourism. It remained achingly unspoiled and waiting to be explored! What I didn't know at the time was that any form of travel was actively discouraged. Attempts to do so independently were regarded with deep suspicion. Expatriates were expected to stay on the compounds when not at work. The majority did so. For the few of us who remained intent on travel, the authority s efforts to prevent it became an incentive and challenge to do so. Wherever I went I was followed, hotel rooms were bugged and, in distant places security officers doubled as tour guides. On-site museums were closed; authentic guides and guide-books were difficult to get hold of! In spite of this, I travelled independently to visit the Graeco-Roman sites from Sabratha in the west to Cyrene in the east; then south into the Sahara to the desert city of Ghadames and through the chain of oases crossing the Fezzan from Sebha to Ghat - once ruled by the powerful and warring Garamantes tribe - to see Tuareg rock-art in the Akakus Mountains. My final sojourn in Libya was as an English Language instructor at the isolated desert oil-site at Marsa el Brega. My final deportation.

267 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2008

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two fairly sensible rules of thumb might be; 1) Self published books.......avoid avoid. 2) Books written by friends......avoid avoid. Well, in this case I am thrilled I ignored both of them. Adrienne Brady writes a fascinating account of her time in Libya teaching English in the early 1990's. It begins with the account of her arrest as a supposed CIA spy and the paranoia this illuminates in the minds of the Libyan authorities spreads across the narrative but this incident also becomes the pulse and throb of Adrienne's own account of her state of mind throughout her 'sojourn in this desert'.

She is fearful and conscious of the dangers she is facing and though she explores and discovers a great love for the country you hear, between the lines, the trembling, the ever present realisation that she does not feel safe. This does, every now and again, lead me to wonder what possesses her and her friends to do what they do. They appear to be rather like some sort of middle aged danger junkies perhaps not flexible enough to do off the wall skateboarding or that weird city racing leaping from building to building so instead they opt to put themselves into more 'mature ' positions of danger which do not involve endangering life and limb by actual physical acts but rather by endangering themselves through 'cocking a snook' at the authorities.

Whatever her reasons, we get a great sense of her exploring, her discovering the beauty present in this place and of her love of the natural world and also of our heritage as humanity symbolized through the incredible ruins found all over the North of Africa. She has a great turn of phrase

"The line defining the crest seperated the two sides of dune - one smooth as milk- the other rippled like the held surface of a wind-blown lake. It was the absolute silence and sense of eternity that held us motionless. Lifted by a breeze, a veil of powdered sand drifted, rested and took off again

and has a marvelous line in gentle sarcasm and poking fun. Her opinion of Embassy Staff and their usefulness is one which perhaps will not get her invited to an enormous number of cocktail parties in the future but something tells me that ' The ambience of the tinkle of ice against glass, refined laughter and the rustle of silk " are not of central importance to this explorer extraordinaire.

The narrative is peppered with her opinions and theories on all sorts and it is a lovely intimate 'listening in'. She offers us her thoughts just as she absorbs and enjoys the thoughts of people from Herodotus and Strabo in the Ancient world to Kapuscinski and Paul Cooper in our day. Yet all these are gently offered for us to partake of and enjoy or put to one side as if at one of those OTT cocktail parties. She is humourous and finds amusement all over, she also shares with us the fact that sarcasm was not just invented in the 20th Century.

Herodotus on crying at religious ceremonies

I think too that they crying of women at religious ceremonies also originated in Libya - for the Libyan women are much addicted to this practice, and they do it very beautifully

Yep, I enjoyed this book and her photographs included serve to punctuate the travelogue and set it in the context of her deep love of history and community.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it in four days over Christmas
I would describe as a travel log with a twist. Adrienne travelled within Libya while working there and had to endure strict, oppressive and often bizarre security in order to see any of the wonderful sights while in the country.
Her descriptions of the complexities when travelling within Libya were very often hilarious but always had a slight sinister feel about them. The being watched at every turn by the security services, the suspicion of the locals, who in Gaddafi’s Libya rarely, if ever, saw Westerners wandering through the country, let alone a single blond woman (who very much stood out from the crowd) and the cultural differences in the women of Libya who are generally shrouded from head to foot in fabric with only one small hole in which the view the world from one of their eyes.
The descriptions and history of the ancient sites were brilliant. I had a real pang of jealousy and would love to visit these as yet unspoilt places, most, apart from Cyrene, I have never heard of… Apollonia, Ghadames, Tolmeita, Sabratha. They all obviously rival any similar Greco-Roman sites in both size and splendour. Perhaps the post Gaddafi era may soon make the place a little safer to travel to and perhaps these sites may become part of the tourist trail, a after reading this book I really hope so
The book gave me a different insight to Gadhafi’s Libya. I had no idea how sweeping his revolutionary changes were; the fact that all books were burnt at the start of the revolution; The attitude of many Libyans to anyone foreign; The squalor, poverty and general neglect of infra-structure and the country’s resources.
If you have an interest in Roman and Greek history and like travel books then I am sure you will enjoy this.