The Stars of Sidi Moumen
Publisher
:
Flammarion
Parution date
:
EAN
:
9782081236363
Number of pages
:
153
Description
***Prix du Roman Arabe***
***Shortlisted for the literary prize Ouest France Etonnants Voyageurs***
***Recommended by 2008 Nobel Prize-winner in Literature J. M. G. Le Clezio***
***Film rights bought by Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch***
This short novel by Mahi Binebine is not just about a teenage terrorist. It tells a coming-of-age story, full of grace and nuances, the contagion of big dreams and irreducible happiness, despite the blows.
Le Magazine Littéraire
The Stars of Sidi Moumen, the latest novel by Moroccan writer and artist Mahi Binebine, is told by Yachine, from beyond the grave, in the form of a posthumous memoir. Yachine was a young boy who, in despair, chose to be one of the suicide bombers of Casablanca’s Grand Hotel on May 16, 2003.
On the outskirts of Casablanca is the shantytown of Sidi Moumen, where Yachine and his ten brothers grew up, sharing the aimless chaos of drugs, violence, unemployment, and despair. These barefoot boys started their own soccer team—the Stars of Sidi Moumen. They played between the rocks, detritus, and buried skeletons of the slum but they dreamed of becoming the best soccer players of all time. From the grave, Yachine remembers the ugliness but retells his fond memories of this childhood: “I am not ashamed to tell you that I was sometimes happy in this hideous rubble, on this damned cesspool of debris, yes, I have been happy in Sidi Moumen, my country.”
Then their dreams changed. Yachine’s older brother Hamid started growing his beard and attending religious meetings with a man—a false prophet—Sheikh Abou Zoubeir. Week after week, the sheikh beguiled the Stars of Sidi Moumen into believing that there was a better world in the afterlife, and in that world their faith in Allah would be rewarded. The sheikh taught them that death was a small price to pay to go to Heaven; and he had a perfect plan to let them escape from their wretched world and live closer to God. They needed only to choose between dying gloriously and together, or living disgracefully and alone. For Yachine and his brother, the choice was clear.
Author
Mahi Binebine :
Mahi Binebine still lives in Marrakech, where he was born in 1959. He is a prize-winning author (Prix méditerranée and the Prix de l’amitié Franco-Arabe) and a successful and respected painter whose work has been displayed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Venice Biennale. Binebine’s previous novel Cannibales (Fayard, 1999) was translated into English by Granta as Welcome to Paradise in 2004.
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