Draft:Numidia (Novel)

Numidia (Arabic: نوميديا) is a novel by Moroccan novelist Tariq Bakari. The novel was first published in 2015 by Dar Al-Adab for Publishing and Distribution in Beirut. It is a medium-sized novel, comprising three chapters, and was included in the final “short” list for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for the year 2016, known as the «Arabic Booker Prize».

Numidia

Author	Tareq Bakari
Language	Arabic
Subject	History, Literary criticism, Political criticism, Cultural criticism
Publisher	Dar Al-Adab Publishing and Distribution
Publication date	2015
Pages	422
ISBN	978-9953-89-481-2

synopsis

In this novel, Moroccan writer Tariq Bakari tells the story of Mourad the Moroccan, written by Julia, Murad’s French lover. She writes about Murad, an abandoned child who was cursed by the people of the village where he was found, and was ostracised, insulted, and beaten. He resorted to love as an attempt to take revenge on fate. He fell in love with Khawla, who became pregnant by him, then fell in love with Nidal, his classmate and fellow activist, then fell in love with Julia, the colonist, until he reached his final love for Numidia, the mute Amazigh woman. Numidia is a novel rich in stories that open up to a historical, political, and religious reality in Morocco.

Characters

• Mourad the ibex, or Ouedad: an abandoned child found by a man in the village of Ighrem, Amhand, who found him in the street and named him Ouedad and took care of raising him with his children, so he became his adoptive father. Ouedad means ibex, and he later became Mourad, an educated, leftist young man and university professor, who wrote about the behavior of extremist Islamic groups and criticized them, so they began to persecute him and threaten to kill him.
• The French Julia: She hides that she is a professional novelist, and asks about everything in the village of Ighrem.
• Khawla: Murad's first and real lover who committed suicide out of fear of the scandal of being pregnant outside of marriage.
• The Doctor: He is his psychiatrist who is considered a traitor to him because he sells his patients' files for money.
• Nidal: His lover and colleague in study and struggle.
• Numidia: Murad's last lover, a mute Amazigh woman whom he fell in love with to make him forget his bitter reality and to take revenge on fate.

place

The village of Ighrem is a spatial space in the novel Numidia. This name does not mean a specific village, but rather a type of Amazigh village adjacent to the rugged and high mountains.

subject

• Religious extremism: The theme of religious extremism is present in the novel through the narrator’s evocation of the grassroots student struggle and the conflict with Islamists on campus or in its vicinity, or through the terrorist event of May 16 in Casablanca that claimed the life of Murad colleague Mustafa’s.
• Violence and corruption: Violence is manifested in the fact that the villagers practiced violence on Murad in his childhood by insulting and beating him because he was a “foundling”, and betrayal is manifested in the doctor who used to sell his patients’ files. “The violent reality pushes the characters towards violence, corruption and extremism that disintegrates societies.”