Numidia نوميديا

🏆 Winner of the 2016 Morocco Literature Award and short-listed for the 2016 Booker Award.

A romantic tale with an interesting device – an orphan’s troubled life in Morocco is told from the viewpoint of a former girlfriend, who wasn’t his first love ... and isn’t his last.

Murad is cursed by the people of his village. Ostracised, insulted and beaten, he turns to love in an attempt to take revenge on fate: first with Khoula, who becomes pregnant; then Nidal, his classmate and fellow comrade in resistance; then Julia, seen as the French coloniser, and with his final love Numedia, the mute Berber. The rich story of Numedia unfolds against the backdrop of the real-life historical, political and religious landscape of Morocco.

Numidia is the first novel by Bakari, 28, the youngest novelist on the shortlist. Still, the Meknes-based Arabic-­language teacher has been working towards his debut – which took three years to write and led him to a small village in the Rif Mountains – with a wide range of shorter creative pieces.