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Tahar Ben Jelloun. By Fire: Writings on the Arab Spring. Trans. Rita S. Nezami. Evanston, Illinois. Curbstone Books / Northwestern University Press. 2016. 120 pages.
Where does one begin to speak of the Arab Spring, after all that has been expended in dreams, analysis, and lives? In By Fire, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Moroccan intellectual and one of the most acclaimed novelists writing in French today, attempts to creatively rescue from the ashes Mohamed Bouazizi, the self-immolating fruit vendor credited with igniting the Tunisian revolt.
This slim novella, the first fictional account to tackle the subject, was initially published in 2011 at the height of the protests. Gracefully translated, with an illuminating and exhaustive introduction, by...