Novel
Lion Mountain
La Montagne du lion
Mustapha Tlili · 1988
Synopsis
In an isolated village in North Africa, at the foot of a mountain that her ancestors held to be sacred, Horia El-Gharib, an ardent and pious young widow, raises her two sons alone and plays a man's part in trade to secure their future. She lives with Saad, a former soldier who lost a leg in the war, advised by the imam. After independence, the power of a president and his party extends as far as the village, and Horia resists it; one of her sons, whom politics has taken, can no longer return.
Context
The novel was published by Gallimard in 1988, in one hundred and eighty-one pages. The narrator recounts, through flashbacks, the life of his mother, in a country that the text does not name and that American critics likened to Tunisia; he follows the growing grip of the regime and the arrival of tourists. Linda Coverdale translated it into English under the title Lion Mountain, published by Arcade in 1990, then reissued by Lynne Rienner in 1998.
Who it is for
A short novel, about a village and a woman, which the English translation also makes it possible to read outside French.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English in 1990 and reviewed by Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly; reissued in 1998 in the United States.
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