الكرنفال

Told largely in the second person, the novel follows a narrator in Gabès, his home town, as he tries to gather the scattered news and tales of his life before time runs out. He coaxes the townspeople into confessing what they did or bearing witness to what they saw, and their accounts of marriages, births, divorces, betrayals and afternoons at the Café Regina build the portrait of a scandalous town. Strange things mingle with the everyday: a church guard's hens that lay by day, a woman whose suitors all die, saints at odds with the town's governor. Fragments of history run through it, from Bourguiba's return from exile to the invasion of Beirut and the al-Aqsa intifada, with episodes in Palestine, Italy and Paris. Its motto: "Tell, and forget."

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

197 pages in the original

Genres

Autofiction, Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Italy, France, 1938–2003

First published

2004 by Dar Sahar

Author's age

57 when first published

ISBN

9789973281289 (original)