Join Octopus Books and Monia Mazigh to celebrate the launch of the English translation of her novel, Farida. Monia will be joined in conversation by Adrian Harewood.
Wednesday October 9th, 6pm - 8pm
Haven Café, 43 Seneca St, Ottawa
This is a novel of modern Tunisia told through the lives of its women.
Farida, a young woman in Tunis, is passionate about reading and loves the French language. She is compelled to marry Kamel, a brute of a man, who drinks, keeps mistresses, and beats her when she talks back. But she is defiant, and takes comfort from her secret reading. The country is a French colony and male-dominated. Finally after ten years she is granted a divorce by the courts and lives with her son Tewfiq. A smoking, independent-minded divorcee, she sees the country attain its freedom from the French and its arrival into modern times; the growth of her son into a young businessman; and her granddaughter Leila mature into an independent, educated young woman.
Translated from French by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott.