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Translated from French by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott.
Farida, a young woman in Tunis, is passionate about reading and loves the French language. But she is compelled to marry Kamel, a brute of a man, who drinks, keeps mistresses, and beats her when she talks back. But she is defiant, and takes comfort from her secret reading. The country is a French colony and male-dominated. Finally after ten years she is granted a divorce by the courts and lives with her son Tewfiq. A smoking, independent-minded divorcee, she sees the country attain its freedom from the French and its arrival into modern times; the growth of her son into a young public servant; and her granddaughter Leila mature into an independent, educated young woman. This is a novel of modern Tunisia told through the lives of its women.
About this Author
Monia Mazigh is the author of two memoirs, three novels, and a collection of short stories. She has written for ONFr+, Radio-Canada, the Ottawa Citizen, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star and contributes regularly to Islamic Horizons. Her memoir, Gendered Islamophobia: My Journey with a Scar(f) was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction in 2023. Farida won the Ottawa Book Award for French fiction. Monia Mazigh is an adjunct and research professor at the Department of English and Literature, Carleton University (Ottawa).
Reviews
"Intimate in style, each chapter bringing out the inner voice of a character, this novel takes us into a bubble containing the lives of three generations of Tunisians. A series of characters appear, representing the evolution of this land of jasmines and the real but difficult emancipation of its women." --Yvan Cliche, Nuit Blanche Magazine
"Monia Mazigh's fluid, elegant writing holds our attention throughout the individual and collective journeys it presents and the social and political transformations that have taken place in Tunisia and Canada." --Jury of the Ottawa Book Award, French Fiction, 2021
?"In a beautiful translation by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott, the book's tone is understated, but its economical prose reveals inner lives roiling with self-doubt, regret and longing." --Maria Meindl, The Temz Review
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