The Bell and the Minaret

Text in Arabic. A captivating novel that unfolds in the philosophical world of Walid, a young man whose passion for cinema elicits dreams of travelling to France to study and produce films that personify his questions about religion, life, and loss. His hopes and dreams of escaping his mundane life, taking with him the French girl-next-door in whom he finds a proxy for the love of his deceased sister, are suddenly shattered when Walid is accused of murdering a Christian priest. The events unfold into a seemingly endless adventure of intellectual and life experiences, in an environment in which religions and nationalities coexist, social relations are intertwined, and the strange story of Father Dominique is revealed. Walids story becomes a gateway to other narratives of places and characters, of both Muslims and Christians and alike. The construction of narratives moving through different eras of time interject the monotony of the story and emphasize the Catch-22 of the protagonists psychological life. A snapshot of daily life in Tunisia in the 1980s, as seen through a candid lens exposing the inner lives of the main characters, the novel touches on their reality and innermost thoughts with boldness and transparency written in a lyrical way that builds suspense and excitement.