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Paris – In a deceptive circular literary and artistic game, the Tunisian novelist Habib Salmi, in his new novel “A Holiday in the Nour Neighborhood” – recently published by Dar Al Adab – explores the secrets of social, political and cultural transformations in Tunisia 13 years after the “Jasmine Revolution”.
The novel's heroes are a building guard, a divorced journalist, and an adventurous young man who is fond of raising dogs. 3 people were recognized by the hero Adel, the translator, who lives in Paris in the “Al-Nour” neighborhood, in one of the suburbs of the capital. Where he rented a furnished apartment to spend his vacation.
Through the ambiguous and volatile relationship that the hero Adel maintains with the journalist, his friendship with the building guard, and his meetings with the adventurous young man, a new picture of revolutionary Tunisia is painted.
Through characters such as Adel, Maryam, Abdullah, Lamia, and Souad, the reader learns about this new image and the profound transformations of Tunisian society through dialogues, discussions, narratives, and internal “monologues,” and discovers the interiorities of these characters, their way of thinking, and their fluctuations, echoing the fluctuations of the Jasmine Revolution.
From hint to statement
Unlike his previous novels, in which the revolution was present in an episodic manner, Al-Salmi moves in his new novel, “A Holiday in the Al-Nour Neighborhood,” from insinuation to statement, to delve clearly and deeply into the events and fluctuations of the Tunisian revolution during the last decade.
For the first time, the “Jasmine Revolution” is present as a fundamental driver of events and characters and influences the course of their development. In many cases, it even turns into a main character around which events revolve and returns to it as a single fulcrum.
From the first sentence in the novel: “The cats were the first to welcome me in the Al-Fal residential complex,” and the last sentence as well: “Many cats gathered around the bags of garbage that the residents had thrown there… They were digging through the bags in search of food,” Al-Salmi is united and completely identified with his characters. To turn into a prancing cat, chasing the threads of the rapid transformations and contradictory fluctuations that Tunisian society experienced during the last decade of the revolution, and artistically digging into the bags of reality full of surprises, events, demonstrations, sit-ins, explosions, and even political assassinations.
Indeed, Al-Salmi, with his alert intuition and his usual craftsmanship in capturing the neglected details of simple daily life and turning them into amazing narrative events and symbols, goes much further than that when he throws dogs, cats, and animals into this symbolic parable and makes them main characters in the novel that move the events, free the “knot,” and justify the “solution.” “And all it lacks is words, and in all of this it is a suggestive artistic narrative approach to the event of the revolution, which relies on black sarcasm and draws comic pictures through “situation comedy” that thrives on contradictions.
Technical shock
Since the Tunisian plane’s take-off was delayed for 3 hours without mentioning the reason, and passing through the sight of cats scattered everywhere, and arriving at the Al-Fal residential complex in the Al-Nour neighborhood, whose wooden gate collapsed, its fence was removed, its bushes withered and its garden dried up, and bags of garbage and waste spread at its entrance, and chaos spread throughout it, there has been a The reader is confused and shocked by the revolution that changed the face of Tunisian reality within years of its inception.
It is the artistic shock that Al-Salmi built into all the halls and events of his novel in order to shed light on the political, social, economic and cultural changes and the Tunisian reality after the revolution, as if he deliberately adopted the principle and game of shock therapy that psychologists adopt to dissect these events and the revolution that shook Tunisian society, which was sick with oppression and tyranny. Fear and dictatorship for decades, and once he got out of this bottle in which he lived for a long time; He became obsessed with freedom, discussion, freedom, speech, and expression until it almost turned into selfishness, chaos, and neglect, according to the novel.
Where we read this scene and passage: “Most of what is in the complex’s garden has changed. The rose and jasmine bushes have lost many of their leaves and withered, and dust that was blown away by the wind has accumulated on them. Some of them died and all that remained were dried trunks or stems planted in the ground. Drought swept through the garden throughout the sweltering summers.” “…even the dirt changed its color.”
In this context, Habib Al-Salmi pointed out that the two scenes of the “Al-Fal Complex”, whose wooden gate collapsed and whose garden lost everything that distinguished it, turning into a mere neglected piece of land, and the emaciated cats digging through the bags of waste that the residents of the complex’s buildings threw in search of food, are two basic entrances to entering the city. The world of “Holiday in the Al-Nour District”.
Al-Salmi said in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net: “My approach to these transformations is neither ideological nor even political; that is, it did not take place by addressing political events despite the importance of these events, but rather by presenting these and other scenes and stopping at them, and also by describing the behavior and positions of the main characters and going in-depth.” In its interior.
He explains: “The transformations that I am tracing are not limited to the outside world, but also extend to what is deeper, which is the Tunisian psyche, his thoughts, and his feelings during the years that followed the revolution. It is the same approach that I adopted in the novel “Women of the Gardens,” which was written and published before the revolution, and a number of people reviewed it. Many critics predicted this revolution.
Pointing out that from the beginning, he wanted the reader to discover the depth of the transformations that the revolution brought about in Tunisian society, many years after its establishment.
Biased towards marginalized classes
The events of the novel – which was recently included in the long list for the Sheikh Zayed Prize – flow in abundant language, short sentences, smooth transitions, and a solid plot, to bring the reader into the “Al-Nour Neighborhood” and accompany him to spend the summer vacation with the hero Adel, get to know his neighbors and relatives, accompany them in their departure and travel, get involved with them in their predicaments and disputes, and enjoy their evenings out. He is perfumed by their laughter, saddened by their sadness, and happy by their joy. Through a game woven by the knowledgeable narrator, who lures the reader with his internal “dependencies”, his deceitful confusion, his bombastic denial questions, and the pleasure of storytelling, until the trap is finally applied to him and he finds himself united with the heroes of the novel and longing for their personal example that goes much further.
This also happens with the novel’s hero, Adel, who is pushed by the knowledgeable narrator to rent a furnished apartment in the Al-Fal complex, despite the chaos and devastation that befell it, as we read in this passage: “The complex is not luxurious, and Al-Nour neighborhood is located in one of the suburbs of Tunisia, an average neighborhood. However, I liked it from the beginning. The truth is that my presence in a neighborhood like this is one of the things that attracts me to it. When I visit Tunisia, I can no longer afford to stay in upscale complexes or stay in cold luxury hotels as if I were a foreign tourist.”
Al-Salmi also deliberately dresses his hero, Adel, in the robe of modesty and the clothing of marginalized classes. We see him likes to talk to people who belong to social classes lower than him, and we also see him preferring to eat radishes in the morning instead of the delicious breakfast that his wife Sophie prepares.
Does this bias of the hero towards the revolution and the poor and middle social classes reflect the bias of the writer Habib Salmi towards these classes and the Tunisian revolution and his clinging to a glimmer of hope despite all the troubles that befell his country and its revolution?
The author of the masterpiece “Marie Claire Masterpieces” answers this question by saying: “Adel’s insistence on abandoning hotels during the vacation he spends in his country, to which he returned after a long absence, and staying in an average neighborhood located in a suburb of Tunisia is very consistent with his principles. He has lived “Before he immigrated to France, he lived in places similar to the Al Nour neighborhood. Then, he belonged to a middle class like the residents of this neighborhood. In addition, it is neighborhoods like these that clearly reflect the transformations that occurred in Tunisian society after the revolution.”
He stressed that he is biased towards the marginalized popular and middle classes because they are more important in his estimation than the comfortable classes. Because she is constantly testing her energies and in constant conflict with life. Her connection to the world is tragic. In his opinion, this makes it deeper and richer than other classes.
He explained that the novelist is not completely separated from his characters. And there is something of him in Adel's personality.
The revolution is not without setbacks
As for the revolution, Al-Salmi indicated in his interview with Al Jazeera Net that he was not very surprised by the problems that Tunisians are suffering from due to the collapse of the economy, the high cost of living, and the catastrophic political situation, because he believes that the revolution is a long, complicated path. It is not without chaos, violence, and setbacks.
He considered that the situation would not improve simply by overthrowing the corrupt dictatorial regime, as some imagine. Because the stage of establishing democracy and the values of justice and equality, which is supposed to lead to positive and real change in the lives of people, takes a long time.
The novel “Vacation in the Nour Neighborhood” attempts to dig with a cutting pick into the folds of the complex Tunisian reality in the last decade, dismantle the social structure, delve deeply into the insides, psyches and interiorities of individuals and personalities, and monitor the dependencies, convulsions and tensions that afflict them and the new and old questions that appeared to the surface with the revolution, as if people had discovered Their lives again, and they discovered their humanity again after being “slaves” of the police state and dictatorship.
As we read in this passage from the novel: “Suddenly, Tunisians discovered the joy of having an opinion in politics, and more importantly, not agreeing with others, and expressing this opinion freely and without any fear. The country was plunged into endless controversy and heated debates, which ended.” Sometimes with insults, exchanging accusations, and even fistfights and sandals. I even heard that husbands divorced their wives, because of these ideological rivalries, which suddenly hit the country like a hurricane.”
This clip expresses and summarizes the scene of violence that occurred between the friends of the hero Adel in the café, the state of polarization and division that Tunisian society is experiencing after the revolution and its fall into the trap of violence, betrayal, and trivial ideological battles.
There are those who see these conflicts as a natural product of the previous years of repression and isolation during the time of dictatorship, and consider them a healthy and positive sign of moving on the right path in order to emerge from the bottle of the authoritarian past and reach democracy. There are those who see them as the main reason for the setback of the Tunisian and Arab revolution.
Al-Salmi, who won the Katara Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2021 for the novel “Longing for the Neighbor,” says: “All this controversy that followed the revolution, and I was keen to portray it in a tone characterized by a mixture of lightness, humor, and humor, is very important, and I consider it a healthy phenomenon.”
He added: “This almost never-ending debate, which we see in all homes, cities and villages in the remote countryside of Tunisia, is evidence of the vitality of society.And on the presence that he has becomeThe individual in it. The emergence of the individual in tribal-dominated Arab societies is essential, in my opinion. It is a sign of maturityC and awareness of responsibility.
Far from ideology and crude directness, and close to storytelling and a smooth, embroidered artistic plot, Al-Salmi succeeded – to a great extent, according to critics – in the novel “A Holiday in the Al-Nour Neighborhood” in approaching this political event with the par excellence of the Tunisian “revolution,” turning it into an exciting artistic event full of sarcasm and black sarcasm. Music, drawing, graffiti, and the visual arts. It draws from biography and opens up to various types of creativity that combine with the pleasure of storytelling in clear harmony, so that all of them ultimately flow into the stream of authentic creativity and serve the true purpose of literature, which seeks beyond simple, immediate, sensual pleasure, despite its importance; To burrow into the deep consciousness of the recipient and explain the fluctuations of the human soul that yearns for emancipation, freedom, and revolution despite all the deceptive external stillness that surrounds it.
