The Last Summer of Reason
Tahar Djaout (Author), Marjolijn de Jager (Translated by), Alek Baylee Toumi (Introduction by), Wole Soyinka (Foreword by)
9780803215917
Paperback / softback, published 1 September 2007
176 pages, none
20.3 x 12.7 x 0.9 cm, 0.181 kg
"The Last Summer of Reason has acquired a new and haunting immediacy since the attacks of September 11. . . . Deftly translated from the French by Marjolijn de Jager, and with a foreword by Wole Soyinka, the novel provides an anguished dispatch from what nearly became Algeria's future. . . . An elegiac ode to literature and a furious protest against intolerance."—Adam Shatz, New York Times
"One is reminded of how life-affirming and dangerous literature still can be."—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The Last Summer of Reason provides a powerful and strangely beautiful reminder of the danger of letting violent ideological fundamentalism fester. We would do well to heed this reminder now, not later."—Jennifer Bryson, Public Discourse
This elegant, haunting novel takes us deep into the world of bookstore owner Boualem Yekker. He lives in a country being overtaken by the Vigilant Brothers, a radically conservative party that seeks to control every element of life according to the laws of their stringent moral theology: no work of beauty created by human hands should rival the wonders of their god. Once-treasured art and literature are now despised.
Silently holding his ground, Boualem withstands the new regime, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now-empty family life, his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him.
From renowned Algerian author Tahar Djaout we inherit a brutal and startling story that reveals how far an ordinary human being will go to maintain hope.
Introduction
Foreword
Sermon 1
The Vigilant Brothers
When will the quake happen?
The summer when time stopped
Pilgrim of the new times
The Good whose substance the Almighty established
The nocturnal tribunal
The binding text
A dream shaped like madness
The future is a closed door
The message suppressed
For that we will live, for that we will die...
Therapists of the spirit
One should come from nowhere
The unknown arbiter
Born to have a body
Does death make noise as it moves?
