Mohammed Said Hjiouij : وت ماركافكا في طنجةك (Kafka in Tangier)

The latest addition to my website is Mohammed Said Hjiouij‘s وت ماركافكا في طنجةك (Kafka in Tangier) . Jawad, who works as a teacher and supports his family (wife, daughter, parents and sister) is reading Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis). One night he has a dream about being pursued by a giant insect in a sewer and wakes up to find that, unlike Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, he has become a monkey. We learn the mesy and complicated back stories of his family and they are naturally not happy about losing their breadwinner. As the narrator tells us several times, Jawad’s story is not dissimilar to Gregor’s though with the variation of perhaps a more complicated family and a Moroccan setting. Jawad sits in his room, happy to be relieved of his responsibilities while his family struggle both financially and psychologically to cope, with only his two year old Down’s Syndrome daughter showing him any affection.

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