Novel
الدقلة في عراجينها
Not translated into English
Béchir Khraïef · 1969
Synopsis
In the Jérid, in south-western Tunisia, under French colonisation. On the death of Sheikh Salem Abdelali, head of an old family of the oasis, his children fight over the land and the palm trees: Hafa, the eldest, seizes the inheritance, Mouldi, the younger, works the land under his control, and their sister Dija returns to her family after a quarrel with her husband. The sons of the family leave to look for work as far as the phosphate mines, where the workers attempt their first strikes.
Context
The novel appeared in 1969. It alternates a narrative in literary Arabic with dialogues in the speech of the Jérid, and links the question of land and inheritance to workers' struggles under colonisation. The action moves from the Jérid to Tlaouit, to Gafsa and to Sfax, and the novel gives a large place to women, deprived of rights and education. Hédi Djebnoun and Assia Djebar translated it into French, published by J.-C. Lattès, in 1986; the Arabic text was reissued in 1994.
Who it is for
A novel of family and land, in Arabic with dialogue in dialect; the French translation of 1986 allows it to be read without Arabic.
Prizes and reception
Ranked sixty-eighth among the hundred best Arab books of the century by the Union of Arab Writers.
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