Si Yussef

by Anouar Majid

The narrator of Si Yussef’s ("Mr." Yussef’s) story is Lamin, a young university student in Fez. One gloomy day, he encounters the subject of his tale in Ashab’s café in Tangier. They continue to meet for the next twelve days—exactly four weeks and two days before Si Yussef’s death. Si Yussef had grown up in the neighborhood of Amrah and had guided tourists around Medina as a child. He became a bookkeeper with the only soap manufacturer in Tangier and for forty-seven years he frequented the Nejma café before transferring his custom to Ashab’s more cosmopolitan establishment in 1964. Si Yussef has come to be regarded with a certain amount of awe, not least because his wife Señora Lucia—a Christian but a good wife—who was a legendary beauty for whom a young Spanish sailor committed suicide in the port of Sebta. As Si Yussef reminisces and assesses the gentle influences of the past, the narrator from his own unconscious or his own imagination, fills the gaps created by Si Yussef’s narration. This is the third meta-real, spiritual voice. Sometimes it is the voice of memory, vague but common, true but impossible to articulate with precision. The voice becomes the voice of Morocco itself, evoking with sensual images a world that cannot yet be confined with language as the story takes on the resonance of a prayer.

Genres: Morocco

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 1992

Reviews

[Anas Ben Sabbouh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Are we told this story for Si Yussef's sake? Here we're not told a boring story of someone who once upon a time existed. the story is a story of a whole generation, and of a city. --- the ME the OTHER .. Si Yussef his wife.. !! choosing the OTHER, losing the SELF. By the end, Anouar Majid is there.

[Yassin Salama · Rating 3 out of 5]

Si Yussef is a Moroccan story that Annouar Majid (the author) tries to describe Mr Yussef (Si Yussef)through his life.
Si Yussef was like a hero in people's minds, and his personality was ambiguous. He married a spaniard woman called Lucia that loved him and was devoted to her husband more than some Moroccan wives do.
Si Yussef died, and everybody witnessed how Lucia's life changed to be like a dead one ...

[Zaynab Nasri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Si Yussef is a lesson of remembrance and memory.
it's not simply the story of a man, or a dead man, but also, a story of a neighborhood,a generation, a nation, and a country. and like every memory, this story, is full of gaps, gaps but not emptiness, and perhaps this is the important part of this book, because it gave us the opportunity to complete it, to imagine and perhaps create our history ( or our memory).

I liked the mythological way that SI yussef used to tell his story.

a beautiful Novel!

[Marwan AzaMi · Rating 3 out of 5]

a bit boring

[Amri Taoufik · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Author actually stresses the use of Si Youssef instead of joseph throught out the book, which refers to and stresses (identity), in other words, elivate the Moroccan Identity!.. it is not a story of someone ... it is a story of a popluation culture, and identity!

[Brahim Elboukhari · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great work, I love it