حكاية تونسية

by Hassouna Mosbahi, حسونة المصباحي

... ومادمت قد فارقت الحياة قبل الأوان ، فلن يدق قلبي هلعا حين أسمع ضربات أحذيتهم
الثقيلة على إسفلت الممر فجرًا ، ولن أرجف حين يقودونني إلى المقصلة وهم صامتون ،
ولن أذرف دمعة واحدة على الدنيا التي فارقتها وأنا في الرابعة والعشرين من عمري،
ولن أستعطفهم طلبا للرحمة والشفقة ، بل ستظل شفتاي مطبقتين ، وعيناي خاليتنا
من أي تعبير ، وجسدي جامدًا مثل جسد كلميت لم يعد يعنيه سلخ الشاة مع ذبحها ...

Genres: Tunisia, Fiction, Africa, Literature

168 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2007

About the author

Hassouna Mosbahi was a Tunisian author, literary critic, and freelance journalist.

Reviews

[Mark Staniforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

While cul-de-sac book groups prepare to ease themselves into the sun-lounger world of Richard & Judy's latest Summer Reads, Egypt still teeters and Syria descends deeper into an all together deeper kind of hell.
This is not intended to send thousands of happy-reading housewives hurtling off on an Arab-inspired guilt trip, rather as a straight-forward fact that for the majority, fiction represents a chance of escapism which will extricate them still further from the news desk reality of blood and war in distant lands.
Hassouna Mosbahi's A Tunisian Tale didn't make Richard & Judy's cut, and to say it's not exactly surprising is an under-statement. It's a grim and challenging novel, and, although it doesn't predict Tunisia's role in the so-called 'Arab Spring' directly, it is also rather a topical one.
It's a novel about internecine strife and societal taboos set largely in a slum crouched on the edge of modern Tunis, told in the alternating viewpoints of a dead mother and her son who has immolated her, and who hunkers unapologetically in jail awaiting execution.
For all the book's undeniable grimness, 'A Tunisian Tale' is an incredibly kinetic book, which will pick you up and swirl you through a chute of hypocrisy and contradiction right to its invigorating conclusion. It's Mosbahi's first book to be translated into English, and is superbly done so by Max Weiss, whose adaptation ensures it retains all of its pace and energy.
Dead narrators are always a risk, but they seem to be enjoying something of a - pardon the expression - new lease of life of late, following Yan Lianke's successful use of the same conceit for his multi-award listed 'Dream Of Ding Village'. Here also, it feels neither contrived nor clumsy. The two opposing voices unfurl their life stories, almost their defence cases: the mother reveals a living nightmare of jealousy and vicious rumour which forced her down the path her son found so abhorrent; he rants his reasons for the terrible act we know he is about to perpetrate.
If the questions of honour at the centre of the novel are not uncommon, and if others have certainly delved more thoroughly, the way Mosbahi approaches the same issues is refreshing, and those highlights are clear and pertinent.
Were it not for the fact that the son effectively expresses his guilt in the opening page, this book could almost be considered fast and engrossing enough to nudge towards the thriller sections of the more adventurous book stores that stock it.
That said, it's more likely to carry a health warning for souls of a delicate disposition than a Book Club sticker any time soon - and it's all the better for it. As riveting and rewarding as it is dark and unforgiving, 'A Tunisian Tale' marks Mosbahi as another new Arabic writer-in-translation to watch.

[Enee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but I wouldn't recommend it to others.

Written by a Tunisian, there is quite a lot of depth for a reader to interpret from this story. It has countless powerful themes.

I like his use of irony to critique a strongly conservative society within Tunisia: the irony of social structures founded on strict, sexist rules breeding desperate and hopeless people in the process of trying to create a "proper" society, and self-fulfilling cycles of condemning and labelling people as animals. It's a moving story and an insight into the reality of many.

[World Literature Today]

"Set on the eve of the Iraq War, A Tunisian Tale reveals a westernized elite that coexists with those in rural villages and urban slums whose inherited systems often stunt lives, ultimately breeding violence." - Michele Levy, North Carolina A&T University

This book was reviewed in the November 2012 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/SfR5Fq

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had quite a hard time getting into this book. The first couple of chapters, came across as rather sexist to me and I found it rather off-putting. As the narrative alternatingly comes from the mother and the son, it struck me that this applied for the both of them. The following out of the mouth of a girl younger then ten years old comes across as rather strange to me:

“I always preferred being around and playing with boys. I usually beat them at their own games. While most people were taking their afternoon naps that ut them out of commission, when nothing can be heard but the chirping of cicadas, I’d sneak away with them unnoticed, out in to the almond or fig groves. On both moonlit and shadowy nights all the other games because it allowed me to touch a boy’s supple warm body and to feel those place sheath would make me yearn for him to put his thing - that thus far only my hand had grazed - into my lap, to give me a kiss and perhaps do other things to me that weren’t even clear yet in my mind”.

Luckily, the table turned before it was too late (for me). Just as I was wondering that the descriptions all seemed so distant to me, some depth was added and it brought the characters to live for me: they went from 2- to 3-dimensional. It helped me understand the main characters perspectives.
Nevertheless, I felt sad for the both of them. They failed each other as far as I'm concerned: neither of them was capable of snapping out of a bad relationship.

[Johan D'Haenen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het decor van dit boek kon ik me heel levendig voorstellen, aangezien ik in Sousse, Kairouan, Djerba, enz. geweest ben, rondgewandeld heb op de kamelenmarkt en in de soukhs, van oase tot oase een tocht met een kamelenkaravaan gedaan heb in de Sahel...
Hassouna Mosbahi schrijft en beschrijft heel beeldend... bovendien bouwt hij het ganse verhaal zeer geleidelijk op met suggesties en insinuaties, zodat je je blijft afvragen wat er nu precies gebeurd is... tot het einde.
Kern van alles is de achterklap, het geroddel binnen een kleine, arme gemeenschap waar jaloezie en frustraties de motor zijn van het dagelijkse leven, met alle gevolgen van dien... of... is het misschien zo dat moeder en zoon - de twee protagonisten en vertellers - niet helemaal goed bij hun verstand zijn, zich laten meeslepen door hun verlangens en wensen, spoken zien waar er geen zijn?
Het is aan de lezer om daarover te oordelen.

[Dorothea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have liked to have rated it higher, but it's a bit too minimalist for me (and I like my novels with a lot more dialogue!)
This book has tinges of Comus' The Stranger, Dostoevsky's "The Underground Man," and various other modern novels, stories, but it doesn't feel cliched. It is also unique in its blend of fairy-tale and the switching back and forth between the narrations of the mother and son. I was forced to read it slowly, which I am glad about, since I could appreciate some of the statements more. Something interesting is done with language as well that came across, even in translation, which makes me wish that I could have read it in the original!

[Alyssa Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool premise and all but the treatment of female sexuality was just a bit too off-putting and it just generally wasn't all that enthralling to make up for it despite the respectable and interesting premise

[☕Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ratings:

Writing 4
Story line 5
Characters 5
Emotional impact 4

Overall rating 4.5

[Sameh Katfaoui · Rating 4 out of 5]

#حكاية_تونسية، حكاية جمعت بين أمّ و ابنها ترك لهما الكتاب اللجام ليرويا قصتهما كلّ على طريقته و على حده.
الأم و تدعى "نجمة" بدأت سرد قصتها من البداية أي قبل مولدها وصولا لنقطة النهاية، أما الابن و يدعى علاء الدين بدأ من حيث انتهت به رحلة حياته و أما سرّهما فلا يبوحان به إلا في آخر الرواية.
كلاهما يعد القارئ بقول الحقيقة و عدم التحريف فالأم تأتينا من عالم الأموات و الأموات لا يكذبون أما الابن فأيامه معدودة و هو أقرب لعالم الأموات من الأحياء إذا ليس لديهما ما يخسرانه !!!
#حكاية_تونسية أحداثها أقرب للواقع منها للخيال كشف فيها الكاتب عن النظرة الدونية للمرأة في مجتمع ذكوري لا يرحم، خاصة " الجميلات" و الذي لا يرى من المرأة غير جسدها.
كما رسم صورة عن حياة النازحين متساكني الأحياء المهمشة و مدى معاناتهم الاجتماعية و النفسية خاصة مع تفشي الجريمة و الرذيلة و انعدام القيم الأخلاقية في تلك المناطق.
#حكاية_تونسية امتازت بأسلوب سلس اعتمد فيه الكاتب على عنصر التشويق كما مزج فيه بين السرد و القصص أو الخرافات الشعبية ممّا زاد في جماليّة الرواية.
#حكاية_تونسية هي حكاية امرأتين جميلتين الأولى نجحت أن تكون أمّا لأبنائها ثمّ أحفادها و هي الجدة أما الثانية بطلة الرواية فنجحت أن تكون الضّحية

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Arab immitation of Camus' The Stranger with typical Arab obsession with female sexuality as it relates to honor thrown in.