Le Paradis des femmes

One summer a writer meets Luz, an actress visiting his country, and their new love inspires him to write the book of his life. Following his memory, the two wander through the places of his childhood, a cosmopolitan seaside town once alive with languages now gone, in the Tunisia of before independence where faiths and cultures lived side by side. With humour and nostalgia he tells her about teenage games, football, girls and first stirrings, and the social rites, circumcision among them, that made him a man in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He recalls the many women he has desired, from the servant Mabrouka to his cousin Kenza, and how listening at night to the eastern tales of Ommi Khadouja made him a writer. Above all the book is addressed to his mother, who first opened this paradise of women to him.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

298 pages in the original

Genres

Coming of age, Love (assigned by AI)

Set in

Tunisia

First published

2006 by Elyzad

Author's age

67 when first published

ISBN

9789973580016 (original)