WRITING A MARWIYYA IN CONTEMPORARY TUNISIA: TAOUFIK BEN BRIK’S KAWASAKI

Abstract

Kawasaki is a novel published in 2014 by Tunisian writer Taoufik Ben Brik, already renowned for his book entitled Kalb ben Kalb. Although Kawasaki addresses issues relevant to literature of resistance, Ben Brik prefers to define it a marwiyya, almost as if to create a new genre. The novel is set in a dry, barren Tunisia, where everything is arid and stony, a metaphor of the state of mind of the men and women who feel trapped in contemporary Tunisian society. The novel bears the name of the protagonist’s motorcycle on which he undertakes a physical journey towards Tataouine, but also a complex metaphorical journey characterised by the nonsensical thoughts that assail him on the way. He is a schoolteacher, a father, and a husband. Keen on art and reading, he does not view the world like everyone else. All of this is reflected in the language used by Ben Brik, which produces an illogical and delirious prose, also on account of the blending and alternation of Tunisian and Standard Arabic. In this paper, I will analyse the main formal features of the novel and its principal narrative strategies.