DOHA: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) has released the award winning novel The Arch and the Butterfly by former Moroccan Culture Minister Mohammed Achaari.
Published on May 8, The Arch and the Butterfly was winner of the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction PAF Prize. It was translated into English by Aida Bamia.
The judging panel described it as “A wonderful novel with great literary quality that deals with important and realistic problems in the Middle East, problems which have been reflected on banners during the protests that have shaken the Arab world, demanding change.”
Set in the author’s home country of Morocco, this is a moving novel of identity, extremism, culture and generational change.
The narrator, Youssef, the son of a cross-cultural marriage between his Moroccan father and German-born mother, is caught up in a mesh of family tragedies that reflect the changing world he lives in.
In the opening of the book, Youssef finds a mysterious letter under his door.
He learns that his only son Yasin, whom he believed to be studying at a prestigious college in Paris, has been killed in Afghanistan fighting with the Islamist resistance.
With his world in pieces and finding himself abandoned by his wife, Youssef begins to question everything, including his own values and identity.
Mohammed Achaari is a poet, short story writer, journalist, former Minister of Culture in Morocco and head of the Union of Moroccan Writers. His work has been translated into several languages.
The Peninsula
