Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
THIS ISSUE: TUNISIA Tunisia: seven years later Tunisias ballooning civil
society Literature unchained The cultural environment in post-2011 Tunisia Authoritarian
revival and elite reconguration in Tunisia Al-Nahda Womens rights in Tunisia since the
2011 uprisings Reforming Tunisias informal economy Photo competition results PLUS
Reviews and events in London
Volume 14 - Number 1
December 2017 January 2018
4
4 16
EDITORIAL Womens rights in Tunisia since
the 2011 uprisings
5 Zoe Petkanas
INSIGHT
LMEI Board of Trustees Tunisia: seven years later 18
Baroness Valerie Amos (Chair)
George Joff Legacies of neglect: reforming
Director, SOAS
Tunisias informal economy
Professor Stephen Hopgood, SOAS
7 Max Gallien
Dr Dina Matar, SOAS
Dr Hanan Morsy
TUNISIA
European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development
Tunisias ballooning civil 20
Professor Scott Redford, SOAS society Photo competition results
Dr Barbara Zollner Mohamed-Salah Omri
22
Birkbeck College
9 BOOKS IN BRIEF
Literature unchained
Mohamed-Salah Omri 24
LMEI Advisory Council IN MEMORIAM
Lady Barbara Judge (Chair)
10 Javad Golmohammadi
Professor Muhammad A. S. Abdel Haleem
The cultural environment in
H E Khalid Al-Duwaisan GVCO post-2011 Tunisia
Ambassador, Embassy of the State of Kuwait
Mrs Haifa Al Kaylani
Nathanael Mannone 25
Arab International Womens Forum EVENTS IN LONDON
Dr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa
President, University College of Bahrain 12
Professor Tony Allan
Kings College and SOAS
Beyond the Revolution:
Dr Alanoud Alsharekh
authoritarian revival and elite
Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS reconfiguration in Tunisia
Mr Farad Azima
NetScientific Plc
Anne Wolf
Dr Noel Brehony
MENAS Associates Ltd.
Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna
14
British Egyptian Society Al-Nahda: from preaching
Mr Paul Smith
Chairman, Eversheds International circles to politics
Rory McCarthy
Literature unchained
T
he 2011 Revolution unchained
Mohamed-Salah Omri
Tunisian literature: it removed
mediation between the writer and
the public; broke the state monopoly on
narrative; encouraged confessional literature
and opened the door for new voices and
extensive self-publishing. Between 2011 and
2015 there was a 70 per cent increase in the
number of books published and a 15 per
cent increase in the number of publishers.
This has affected fiction, non-fiction and
poetry. Emblematic of this change is the
novel Kalb bin Kalb (Dog, Son of Dog,
2013), written by the dissident journalist and
writer Taoufik Ben Brik, which became an
immediate bestseller in a rejuvenated book
A collection of Tunisian
market with 40,000 copies sold in a year. books. Photograph by
The book is written entirely in the Tunisian Mohamed-Salah Omri
dialect and tells the story of the marginalised
sections of society in a marginalised idiom. in the new-found appeal of the national and books by Ammar Zimzmi, Abdelhamid
Such a democratisation of register was, in anthem. Mohamed Sghaier Awlad Ahmad Jelassi, Kamel Cherni and many others.
fact, one visible and audible effect of the emerged as the Revolutions poet and was Literature gained more presence in
Revolution. For the first time in decades, celebrated as such, with an official and the public sphere and in the media, with
a system of authority no longer controlled public commemoration of his work at the more book reviews, a dedicated television
language, which also opened the door for prestigious Carthage International Festival programme, House of Fiction, presented by
explicit sexual language in literature, as in and an unprecedented gala at the national novelist Kamel Riahi, radio programmes,
the novel Intisab Aswad (Black Erection) theatre a few months before his death. New and frequent book signing ceremonies and
by Aymen Dabbousi and the work of Kamel attempts to rethink poetry, such as the presentations in local libraries, bookstores
Zoghbani and Kamel Riahi. movement entitled nass/text, remain at an and festivals. Novelist Emna Rmili, for
There has been a plethora of fiction since emergent stage. example, was celebrated by the citizens of a
2011, but the novel is the medium of longue The current period has been in many town whose name she gave to the prize-
dure, which means that the novel does not ways a struggle for narrative and the winning novel, Toujane (2016). Alongside
cope well with revolutions, which are based reclamation of history. Testimonial writing wider recognition of marginal and formerly
on sudden change and uncertainty. Poetry, has become a means of positioning and a censored writers inside the country,
on the other hand, can handle sudden part of discourses competing for legitimacy, Tunisian literature gained remarkable
change or uncertainty and even thrives in part of the jostling for a place in a history foreign attention too. The poet Mohamed
such conditions. For all sorts of reasons, that is now susceptible to reconstruction Sghaier Awlad Ahmed was celebrated in
poetry travels better than fiction and now it and retelling. A boom occurred in memoirs Italy, Malta and Switzerland while the novel
travels faster than fiction. It has joined the and prison literature, including several al-Taliyani (The Italian) won the Arabic
ranks of other speedy travellers: cartoons, books by Leftists and Islamists which detail Booker Prize in 2015. But seven years on,
comments, images, news. torture, censorship and the suffering of we are witnessing a decline in the readership
Poetry, long the main means of families under previous regimes. Notable of literature as people read less and write
resistance and protest, accompanied the examples include Samir Sassi, Burj al-Rumi: more and as audio-visual media dominates
initial phases of the Revolution. Tunisias abwab al-mawt (Borj Roumi: Doors of public attention.
national poet, Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi Death, 2011), Mohamed Salah Fliss Sajin fi
(1909-1934), looms large on slogans and watani (A Prisoner in My Homeland, 2016) Mohamed-Salah Omri is Professor of Arabic
and Comparative Literature and Fellow of
A democratisation of register was, in fact, one St. Johns College, University of Oxford. He is
the author of A Revolution of Dignity and
visible and audible effect of the Revolution Poetry (2012)