JEDDAH: In her debut novel “Good Girl,” German-born poet Aria Aber writes a raw tableau of contemporary German society, plunging readers into post-9/11 psyche through the eyes of Nila, a 19-year-old Afghan German girl.
As Nila stumbles through Berlin’s underground techno scene, the city emerges as a character that, like her, is fractured and being forged anew. Berlin seems to be in the throes of struggling to reinvent itself amidst rising Islamophobia and neo-Nazi violence, while Nila’s quest for selfhood emerges in her rebellion against the suffocating expectations imposed on Afghan girls and the identity crisis born out of living in a society that seems suspicious of her presence.
It's a tale as old as the human desire for movement and refuge: Nila is too Afghan for German society, and too German for the Afghan community, with both watching her every move. Aber’s raw and fragmented narrative style mirrors her character’s splintered identity while capturing her “violent desire” to live and her aching need to belong and to be accepted as she is.
Though the novel occasionally stumbles with uneven pacing and moments that may seem repetitive or overwritten, what sets it apart is the author’s refusal to sanitize or sermonize. Nila’s messy, unconventional path to self-discovery remains unapologetically hers.
The emotional core of the novel lies in the tension between expectations placed on girls and the honor-based abuse that simmers beneath. Nila’s parents, progressive by diaspora standards, permit her artistic pursuits and eschew strict traditions. Yet their insistence on a “good girl” image still carries an undercurrent of control that constrains her freedom.
Ultimately, “Good Girl” is a young woman’s howl against a world that demands she shrink, marking Aber as a writer to watch.
