Le chat et le scalpel

A portrait of Tunisian society in 2018, built from small, sharply drawn strokes. The narrator, a lonely man in his fifties, despairs as the cultural references he lives by are swept aside by stupidity, imposture and dogma in a country adrift after years of upheaval since the revolution. Around him moves a large cast of people one could meet in the street every day, told with a taste for excess, digression and magical realism. Two free women, a Berber princess rooted in the land and a woman of the sea who has broken with convention, become the means through which he reveals himself, as the story turns from a violent present toward his secret self and a calmer memory.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

242 pages in the original

Genres

Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Tunisia, 2018

First published

2020 by Nirvana

Author's age

61 when first published

ISBN

9789938530513 (original)