Kafka in Tangier by Mohammed Said Hjiouij, translated by Phoebe Bay Carter
ISBN: 9789920570282 (Paperback)
ASIN: B0BTYXL9LG (Kindle edition)
Page Count: 86
Release Date: February 2023
Publisher: Agora Publishing
Genre: Fiction | Satire | Short Fiction
“A masterful reinterpretation of Kafka’s classic tale, exploring the themes of identity, transformation, and the human condition in a haunting and thought-provoking manner.” ― Fatima Ouaiaou
Jawad is a Kafkaesque hero who drags his nightmare with him from the reality of illusion to the illusion of the reality in which he resides. In the novel Kafka in Tangier, Moroccan novelist Mohammed Said Hjiouij takes us to the world of Kafka’s metamorphosis and the transformation of his famous hero to construct a parallel Moroccan world: a nightmare that is at its heart a reality that haunts us all.
The hero here is the counterpart of the hero there, and although the monster’s shape differs, along with the geography, time period, and language, the reality of the individual and his transformations do not differ no matter how far he travels through time and space.
The writing treads on solid narrative ground, not lacking in irony, bitterness, or the construction of precise descriptions that lengthen and shorten, expand and contract with great caution, the caution of a short novel wary of becoming bloated with details, heroes and words.
A putrid smell, a numbness tinged by pins and needles, wetness between the thighs―thus the narrator sets the stage for the catastrophe that will befall the hero, slowly, neither hurried nor hesitant. What awaits us next?
Purchase Links #CommissionEarned: Amazon | Amazon Kindle
Meet The Author
Mohammed Said Hjiouij is a Moroccan Novelist. His novel By Night in Tangier won the Inaugural Ismail Fahd Ismail Prize (2019). His second novel, The Riddle of Edmond Amran El Maleh, has been shortlisted for “The Ghassan Kanafani Prize for Arabic Fiction (2022),” and the Hebrew translation is coming soon. Kafka in Tangier has been translated into Kurmanji and excerpts into Hebrew and Italian.
Connect with the author via his website | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter
The Book Diva's Reads 