A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me: A Novel

by Youssef Fadel, Alexander E. Elinson (Translator)

A powerful and poetic masterpiece where ordinary people’s dreams play out in a city plagued by government exploitation and crime

Shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation

As his wife delivers their child in the next room, a man wakes from the nightmare of a teenage girl’s body lying beneath his bed. In this twilight before birth, Fadel’s epic novel catches us in the confusion between exaltation and despair. The girl, Farah, once dreamed of being a singer in Casablanca, a city standing in the shadow of the tallest minaret in the world.

Illuminating the aspirations of those just struggling to make a living, A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me is a tour-de-force, a novel of power plays and petty jealousies, deceit and corruption, love and loss, written with Fadel’s masterful, narrative control and searing, historical insight.

426 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2019

About the author

Youssef Fadel (born 1949) is a Moroccan novelist and playwright. He was born in Casablanca. He was imprisoned by the government in the infamous Moulay al-Sheriff prison during the 1970s.He has written several plays and novels. His debut play The Barber in the Poor District was turned into a film by Mohamed Reggab. He has written nine novels, including Hashish (winner of the Grand Atlas Prize) and A Rare Blue Bird that Flies with Me (shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize). Jorge Aguadé studied the diglossic language used in his works "Des romans diglossiques: le cas de Youssef Fadel"(Cadiz University, Cadiz, Spain).

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...