Sardines and Oranges: Short Stories from North Africa

by Mansoura Ez-Eldin

Twenty-six hard-hitting, passionate, moving, funny and human stories from North Africa by 21 authors from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia. Latifa Baqa, Ahmed Bouzfour, Rachida el-Charni, Mohamed Choukri, Mohammed Dib, Tarek Eltayeb, Mansoura Ez-Eldin, Gamal el-Ghitani, Said al-Kafrawi, Idriss el-Kouri, Ahmed el-Madini, Ali Mosbah, Hassouna Mosbahi, Muhammad Mustagab, Hassan Nasr, Rabia Raihane, Tayeb Salih, Habib Selmi, Izz al-Din Tazi and Mohammed Zefzaf. Many of these authors are major literary figures in their own countries, and the Arab world. They have broken with taboos and censorship, and established standards of innovation that have encouraged younger generations of authors. Pain, hardship, heartache, humour, identity, joy, loss and strategies for survival are universal themes and all are represented here, writes Peter Clark, who edited and introduces the stories, and is one of the thirteen translators of the volume.

Genres: Morocco

222 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2005

Reviews

[Janice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short stories, all have the same vibe whether from the translations, the original editing or publication magazine, regional style. Interesting in that it depicts a north african culture of 1990-2010.

[Kerry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really struggled to get through this anthology. In the end the medieval brutality and misogyny of these stories got the better of me and I just couldn't enjoy them. Looked at this book because it has been taught at my school but, in the end, nothing would make me use this in a classroom. Happy to send it back to the library!

[Laila Taji · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not convinced the translations are the best they could be but I really enjoyed reading the short stories and found a lot of the characters to be fascinating. They were on the whole a bit depressing but it was interesting to see the differences and similarities between the various Arab countries around North Africa.

[El Maghfour]

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