In an elegiac tone, shaked by erotic desire, Amin Zaoui is uprooting the human layers of life in Algeria. Jews and Christians and Muslims interacting, hating each other, killing each other, marrying each other. There is no romance of coexistence as some may force themselves to dream about. It is just real life with real people and real encounters.
Le Dernier Juif de Tamentit - The Last Jew of Tamentit - which I´ve read in the original French language is short, lost of words in the clouds of desire. But through stories within the story and fragments of memories, there is a full realm which is brought to life, through the foggy wordings of past and present and memories of the past and projections of the future.
In addition to the poetry, there is a sociological-anthropological structure we are guided through, describing and less explaining human interactions and synergies, more or less forced by geopolitical encounters. There is no love or hate, just episodes of a lifetime.
I wished the story is bolder and dares to say more, to recreate more, to use the extraordinary potential of a language used as a tool to describe desire and inspire facts.
Amin Zaoui moved to France during the Algerian war, but regurned to Algeria at the end of the 1990s. Tamentit, the city mentioned in the book, is situated in the South-Central part of Algeria, close to the hot desert climate.
Rating: 3 stars
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