By beautiful happenstance (or was it fate?), I recently stumbled into the wonderful world of Tunisian fiction. I tore through Yamen Manai’s The Ardent Swarm, an elegantly crafted parable that mixes nature, political commentary, and human courage. I inhaled Shukri Mabkhout’s soaring epic The Italian, a story that blends love and politics into a beautiful drama. And as I devoured these works, I began looking for others.
As a scholar of Middle Eastern history and cultures, I hadn’t seen much Tunisian literature in translation. Egyptian novels, for sure! Iraqi literature, yes. Books by Palestinians and Israelis, Kuwaiti works, Libyan, Saudi Arabian, Turkish, and more. But this was my first taste of Tunisian authors in English. I wanted more. I needed to know more.
In my search, I discovered that Tunisian literature is full of award-winning authors. While few of their award-winners have been translated into English — only Manai and Mabkhout’s — there are a number of other translated works by popular, prize-winning Tunisian writers. So, join us as we discuss these authors, look at their works, and highlight those that are available in English. Grab a pen, you’ll want to add these to your reading list!
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Yamen Manai (b. 1980)
Writer and engineer Yamen Manai has four novels to his name, all of them award-winners. La Marche de Incertitude received Tunisia’s COMAR d’Or prize in 2009. La Sérénade d’Ibrahim Santos won the smaller Alain-Fournier Prize in France in 2012. Manai won the COMAR d’Or again in 2017 for L’Amas Ardent (The Ardent Swarm), which also received Le Prix des Cinq Continents that same year. And Manai’s latest work, Bel Abîme, won an award for African authors who write in French, the Prix Orange du Livre en Afrique.
I first learned of Manai through Lara Vergnaud’s personal essay “How Translation Brought Me Home to Tunisia.” This poignant piece highlights Vergnaud’s Tunisian heritage and how she came to translate The Ardent Swarm into English. Her tale piqued my interest. University classes and books about Middle Eastern history and literature mention little about Tunisia. I quickly ran to pick up the novel.
The Ardent Swarm starts with village beekeeper Sidi, as he hunts for the peculiar and unusually vicious hornets that destroyed his hives. Manai eloquently weaves this into a political commentary. In an unnamed nation, election season approaches in the wake of the Arab Spring. Politicans woo villagers with gifts, while a small militant group plots a strike on a military patrol. I loved how these disparate elements (the bees, the government, and the militants) spiraled together into an eloquent and surprising conclusion.
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Shukri Mabkhout (b. 1962)
The academic scholar and literary critic Shukri Mabkhout won the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his first novel, al-Talyani (The Italian). This work is darker and grittier than Manai’s, plunging us into 1980s Tunisia, a time of profound political and social upheaval. Mabkhout crafts this world in intricate detail, as ideologies clash on multiple fronts: conservative vs. liberal, Islamist vs. leftist, and social pressure vs. an individual’s hopes and dreams.
Translated by Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil in 2021, the story follows the lives of two lovers, the leftist activist Abdel Nasser and the outspoken and gifted academic Zeina. The arc of this complex tale takes one firmly in its grasp, weaving these characters’ lives with the events of their evolving world. We witness how they struggle against the stringent system around them, facing different challenges and traumas, but clasping tightly to their principles no matter the cost.
I have to be honest — I enjoyed this work, but it took me a little while to finish reading it. Abdel Nasser is a despicable and selfish character in many places, crafted deliberately as such given his personality and childhood. But you don’t have to like a character to love the story. And Mabkhout is a master storyteller. I won’t forget these characters, their arguments and experiences, and how they slipped into the flow of Tunisian history.
Other Award-Winning Tunisian Authors
There are many other Tunisian prize winners, yet English translations of their award-winning books are surprisingly limited — currently confined to the two works described above. Other works are available however and so a number of Tunisian authors deserve mention:
Habib Selmi received the Katara Prize in 2021 for his Arabic novel Longing for the Woman Next Door. Some of his other works have been translated, including The Scents of Marie Claire and Goat Mountain.
In 2021, Amine Al Ghozzi was one of the awardees for the European Union Prize for Literature, an award open to the 41 countries that participate in the Creative Europe program, including Tunisia. A translated excerpt of Al Ghozzi’s prize-winning novel Zindali, the Night of 14 January 2011 is available here.
Emna Belhaj Yahia won Tunisia’s COMAR d’Or prize twice: in 2012 for her novel Jeux de Rubans (Game of Ribbons) and in 2022 for En Pays Assoiffé (In a Thirsty Country). Check out this excerpt from the first book, as translated by Emma Ramadan.
What Next?
Start reading! Look for books by these Tunisian authors at your local library. Or, better yet, support the authors by purchasing their work for yourself. Go to your neighborhood bookstore, click the links above, or visit online sites like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or Powell’s.
If you liked this post about Tunisian authors, please share it on social media, subscribe to this blog, or leave a comment below. Which book or author intrigued you the most? Have you read any of these works already? And what should I write about next??
And lastly, make sure to check out other books by Middle Eastern authors. There are so many excellent works to choose from. Here at the blog Other Things, we’ve discussed six must-read authors from Kuwait, explored outstanding examples of Turkish literature, and studied the lyrical and evocative imagery of Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani.
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