المشرط

An unknown man on a motorbike roams Tunis, slashing women's backsides with a scalpel and spreading fear through the city. Around the attacks the capital seems to be rotting: streets torn open by ugly roadworks, the statue of Ibn Khaldun standing grimy over the wreckage, birds killing themselves in flocks, a new morality police chasing lovers through parks and cemeteries. Out of this world come characters drawn from history, from old texts and from the cafés and bars of the city, among them the Mukhakh, a monster born of a man and a she-mule, a hideous bird with a mule's head that feeds on human brains, above all children's. Searching for the secret of the crime, they tell the life and sorrows of Khadija, the novel's name for the very part of women the attacker targets.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

177 pages in the original

Genres

Satire, Crime (assigned by AI)

Set in

Tunisia

First published

2006 by Dar al-Janub

Author's age

32 when first published

ISBN

9789973844606 (original)