Roma Teirmini

Readers of Najwa Binshatwan’s books are constantly amazed by her experimental writing, not only at the level of the narration with its various elements, but also at how she digs deep to bring out a subject that is of obvious relevance and then succeeds in turning it into a new, rich, and reserved subject. Following her novels, “The Horses' Hair” and “The Slave Pens”, in her latest book: “Roma Termini”, she takes us to Italy to meet Natasha, the immigrant who works in the house of three old Italian women, who live comfortably and luxuriously in the wealth of capitalism while they bully the rest of the world around them by it, though their own children didn’t inherit from their wealth, as if they were in a parallel internal immigration. Natasha says: "What is my need for the stars? I only need money, I left my country for it, and I will work for it under any sky." to which one of the three old women responds: "Italy can't handle you immigrants, you come from everywhere and take jobs from our youth."
This is a novel about the contemporary diaspora, the immigrants' compromises, and the victims that are always blamed, not for what they committed, but for their identity and who they are. It's about the present world with its ever-changing and flowing human map, not that of geography in its fixed colors, because immigration is an uninterrupted act that begins the minute of arrival in the diaspora, whether it is a country or just an idea.