The Embassy of the Republic of Tunisia shared with us some of their collections. Happy reading!

Songs of Life, Abu-L-Qasim Al-Shabbi

The most complete edition of Abu-L-Qasim Al Shabbi, the greatest poet of Tunisia, and one of the most attractive literary figures of 20th century North Africa.

The collection was published in Cairo under the title Aghani al-Hayat (Songs of Life) in 1955.

Born in 1909, Abou El Kacem Chebbi devoted most of his short life to his art, unafraid to shock his contemporaries and dispel traditional and often bigoted conceptions of culture, at a time when Tunisia was witnessing the emergence of a movement of reformist ideas in art, teaching, equality between the sexes, the importance of national identity.

His premature death in 1934 at the age of 25, orphaned Tunisian poetry, but also enabled the poet’s inspired work, to acquire a posthumous universal audience.

Al-Shabbi wrote nature, love, nationalistic, and revolutionary poetry.

Parts of his most famous poem “the will of life” are found in the Tunisian national anthem, as follows: 

“If, one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer their call And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fail.

Le corps de ma mère (The body of my mother), – Faouzia Zouari

Fawzia Zouari is one of the most eminent Tunisian authors writing today.

In her novel, she tells us the story of her mother and her struggle in a patriarchal society, trying to explore “this double bottom hiding place where she has piled up her memories”. A strong, authoritarian woman, resistant to tenderness and who drags behind her the weight of confinement.

The Ardent Swarm , Yamen Manai

The Ardent Swarm (originally published as L’Amas ardent) is the first book of Yamen Manai to be translated into English. The book, part of the list of books to read in 2021 of the New York Times, earned both the Prix Comar d’Or in Tunisia and the Prix des Cinq Continents, a literary prize recognizing exceptional Francophone literature. 

 Yamen Manai, born in 1980 in Tunis, is a writer and an engineer.

In The Ardent Swarm, he celebrates Tunisia’s rich oral culture, a tradition abounding in wry, often fatalistic humor. 

It is about the story of one man, Sidi, the hermetic beekeeper of the village of Nawa, whose cherished honey bees are attacked by a swarm of fanatical hornets bent on murder. This kingdom of bees serves as an unexpected, but clear stand-in for the political instability that plagued (and continues to plague) Tunisia after 2011. 

Manai draws on Tunisian oral tradition to construct this ecological allegory, portraying the Nawa villagers (the Nawis) as a chorus voicing their surprise and skepticism at the changing times.

The Gorilla, Kamel Riahi

It’s the story of Salah, known as The Gorilla who decided, a warm August afternoon to climb up the metal tower clock in central Tunis defying all the restrictions and waving to the crowd that gathered beneath him. The novel’s timeframe is set between The Gorilla reaching the top of the tower and his dramatic fall. During this time a patchwork of characters and stories is rhythmically woven chapter after chapter until all the pieces fall into place and an almost complete landscape unfolds before the readers’ eyes.

Kamel Riahi is a Tunisian novelist and journalist born in 1974. He has been translated into different languages and he was selected to be one of the 39 Arab writers under 40 years who were selected for the anthology Beirut39. 

Let me Dream, Samar Samir Mezghani

“Let me dream” is a story book containing 13 short stories written by perhaps the most remarkable talent to have come out of Tunisia in recent years.  Samar Samir Mezghani has been a published author since the age of 12. She is featured in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest published author and the most prolific, having authored 14 volumes of short stories for children already. 

She’s also a member of the board of several major NGOs, including the Arab Thought Foundation, an advisor to the UN and frequently features in lists of the most important Arab women living today.