On Identity

Amin Maalouf

Editions

Review

This slim volume was first published in France in 1998 under the title ‘Les Identités Meurtrières’.  Since 11th September 2001 it has acquired a ghastly urgency, for it is an enquiry into the nature of identity – personal and cultural – and the murderous potential of those who feel aspects of their identity to be threatened.  Maalouf’s argument is not simply that we should respect people’s languages, religion and so forth, but that we must all get out of entrenched habits of thought which make us reduce identity to single affiliations: a person is more than just, say, a Muslim: but if his/her identity is reduced to just that – which it is liable to be if threatened – then this identification can become murderous.  Maalouf is well qualified to express opinions on the subject: a Lebanese Christian novelist who has lived in France since the late 1970s and writes in French, he is acutely conscious of the composite nature of his own identity.  History has demonstrated that Maalouf was horribly right: we cannot afford to ignore his excellently translated book (it won the Scott-Moncrief Prize). - review by Johnny de Falbe