Mohammed Said Hjiouij
Autor von Kafka in Tangier
Über den Autor
Bildnachweis: Source: https://hjiouij.com/
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Wissenswertes
- Geburtstag
- 1982-04-01
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- Morocco
- Geburtsort
- Tangier, Morocco
- Wohnorte
- Tangier, Morocco
- Kurzbiographie
- 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 forthcoming. "Kafka in Tangier" has already been translated into Kurmanji, with excerpts in both Hebrew and Italian.
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I did like the title. And the fact that it can be read in one sitting. And the chapter headings, which reference, for no discernible reason, "Hero With a Thousand Faces", "The Man in the High Castle", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "The Dead Zone" (presumably Stephen King), "A Thousand and One Nights", and "Brave New World",. among much else. That elicited a smile, anyway.
Beyond that, there are references to faqihs, zabibat al-salah, sixth-century Arabic poetry, devotion-obsessed bartenders, a parade of pseudo-Rabelaisian bedroom romps, and, strangely, halfway through, Harry Potter. And of course, Kafka's giant insect, transformed into a monkey. Is this an obscure reference to racism ?
The best thing that can be said about it is, it reads like a rough draft that needs some work. Well, a lot, actually. But I admire the author's bravery in putting this weirdness out there.
Afterthoughts: mulling it over, I think I have a better idea of what bugs me about this. It is the apparent insensitivity in dealing with the Kafka theme. Had there been no reference to Kafka, this would not have been an issue. To me, one of the joys in encountering Kafka is that no matter how strange the contents, the approach is slow, gentle, intricate, subtle and humane. He is an enormously skilled observer. This, on the other hand, is very un-Kafka-lilke, in that it is something of an indiscriminate onslaught on the senses, moral and ethical as well as perceptual.… (mehr)