Afterword
The English dictionary does not contain the word torturess. While the feminine suffix “-ess” certainly continues to exist and be used to depict certain categories: princess, hostess, heiress, seamstress, and so on (and, in former times, a woman who wrote poetry might well be called a poetess rather than what seems to have become the current preference for poet—or even female poet), it might be assumed that the generally horrific functions associated with the torture of human beings has been an exclusively male preserve and thus the term torturer has been sufficient. In this novel by Bensalem Himmich, however, the Arabic title Mu‘adhdhabat
is unequivocally feminine in form. It is out of a desire to underline the clear indications of the title and the fact that it consists of a single noun that I have coined the English title I have used.
This is the fourth novel written by Bensalem Himmich that I have translated into English. The first (in order of their publication in English) is Al-‘Allamah (1997: The Polymath, 2004), which recounts the later life in Cairo of the great Arab philosopher of history, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) — that topic being, not coincidentally, the field of scholarly specialization of Himmich himself; the second, Majnun al-hukm (1990; The Theocrat, 2006), is devoted to the controversial life of the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (985–1021); and thirdly, Hadh
al-Andalusi (2007, A Muslim Suicide, 2011), which follows the life and death of the controversial Andalusian Sufi physician and theologian known by the nickname, Ibn Sab‘in (1217–68) — and I need to note here that the title of the English translation is a reflection of the author’s original intentions that were not reflected in the original Arabic version’s title. In other words, all three of these novels in translation are narratives in which the life and career of a famous figure from the Arab-Islamic heritage are placed into a fictional context which, while based to an extent on textual accounts of the persons and periods in question, are primarily the products of the author’s own imagination. One might therefore identify them as contributions in Arabic to the subgenre of the “historical novel,” thus following in the path pioneered by Sir Walter Scott with his Waverley novels and replicated in various world literary traditions by such illustrious figures as Leo Tolstoy and Honoré de Balzac. However, Himmich himself has expressed the view — in many personal conversations and public presentations that we have done together — that he does not wish to use the term historical novels in connection with these works. For him, these and his other fictional works are novels (and it needs to be mentioned here that he is also a poet and, as already noted, a scholar in the field of historiography). In expressing that view he joins the great European critic, Georg Lukacs, who similarly declares that novels that utilize history in one way or another — and there are indeed many such ways — are indeed simply novels. Indeed, Lukacs goes beyond that to suggest that, in one way or another, every novel can be considered “historical”—whether it treats the topic of history and figures from the past or whether it is a reflection of the era in which it is written. In the Arabic literary context, one might suggest that Jamal al-Ghitani’s (b. 1945) famous novel, Al-Zayni Barakat, is certainly a classic example of a novel that makes use of history to comment on the present, but that almost any novel by his compatriot, Najib Mahfuz (1911–2006), can now be considered “historical,” whether we talk about the world-famous Trilogy of novels about Cairo in the interwar period (in the case of the novels, approximately 1917–44) or Al-Summan wa-al-Kharif (1962), which is set during and immediately after the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.
My Torturess is then first and foremost a novel, and yet it too fits into a particular period in history — indeed, a very recent one — the ramifications of which are still very much before us. During the period following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and as part of its consequences in terms of the “war on terror,” the novel’s primary character, a young man called 
amuda from the Eastern Moroccan city of Oujda, is subject to the process dubbed by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as “extraordinary rendition,” involving arrest and transfer to a secret camp in one of several nations whose posture toward the use of torture was and is somewhat less punctilious than in other countries. Himmich himself has served as Minister of Culture in Morocco, and whatever information is available about these secret camps and the methods that were used to “render” those suspected of being “terrorists” suggests that Morocco may have one of those secret sites. However, the process whereby Hamuda is “rendered” to the place where he is to spend six years of his life does not indicate where the location is — whether in Morocco or another country.
Hamuda is to suffer at the hands — and other parts of the body — of the novel’s title figure, a woman of apparently French origins nicknamed “Mama Ghula” (Mother Ghoul). She is the “torturess” of Himmich’s and my title, and her presence in the camp and indeed the nickname coined by her victims serve to accentuate the highly unusual circumstance, it would appear, of utilizing a woman, and especially a woman’s body, in the exercise of torture involving male internees. Hamuda’s own statements throughout the narrative and his regular invocations and prayers make it clear that he is a devout Muslim; indeed, at one point during his lengthy incarceration he is appointed as the prisoners’ mufti (religious counselor). However, it emerges during interrogation that it is the activities of his cousin, al-Husayn al-Masmudi, a member — we later learn — of a jihadist group operating in the Atlas Mountains, that appear to arouse the interest of the security forces who subject Hamuda to the process of “rendition.”
Among the variety of “trials and examinations” that Hamuda is forced to endure are exposure to the treatment of a variety of guards in different segments of the prison, cellblocks subjected to intense noise, the placement of “plants”—other “prisoners” who actually are not in that category — in Hamuda’s cell itself and both the exercise yard and cafeteria (when and if he is allowed access to them), and fake firing squads. However, the most direct method takes the form of cross-examinations involving two primary figures. The first is the investigating judge, a fellow Arab, it would appear from his lengthy discussions of the pedantries of correct Arabic language use and his delight in debates on literature and style — whose very pedantry is responsible for many of the cultural references that make up the entries in the glossary accompanying this translation. In justifying the methods of torture employed by the second figure, Mama Ghula (the “torturess”), the judge reveals to Hamuda and the reader exactly who those “foreign agencies” are:
She should be punished, not merely for what she’s done to you but also because, when it comes to monstrous conduct and illicit behavior, she has no peer; when it comes to terror and violence, no one else comes even close. But how can I be blamed when Uncle Sam has written her a blank check? What am I supposed to do? The Yankees have given her a green light — in fact, it’s so green that there’s nothing fresher and greener. And, if you’ve never heard of the Yankees and Uncle Sam, then let me tell you that it’s the Americans. .”