fr The Independent Arabia 6.6.25

Hassouna Al-Mesbahi – the nomadic novelist rebellion against the world | Independent Arabia

The late Tunisian novelist Hassouna Mosbahi lived for 75 years, passing away last Wednesday, as he wished, free to the utmost extent, moving between numerous and distant geographies, maintaining a distance between himself and authority and ideology, constantly criticizing every reactionary discourse, rejecting every narrow idea and every framework that limits the freedom of the being, especially when this being is deeply rooted in the land of culture, thought, and creativity.

Hassouna Mosbahi addressed the transformations of public life in Tunisia in most of his works, highlighting the political and social tensions that the country experienced. He criticized political trials and the social and economic injustice that affected a large segment of the population, and his works served as readings of the current Tunisian situation and reflections on the cultural and social heritage of a country that has gone through many fluctuations, moving from areas of liberation and openness to different contexts, which seemed to the late writer as expressions of intellectual and civilizational regression.

For the sake of literature, Mosbahi gave up his job in Tunisia and chose to travel to the east and west of the earth, searching for happiness, as expressed in the title of one of his books ‘In Search of Happiness.’

The late Egyptian writer Youssef Idris paid early attention to the talent of the Tunisian writer, and said about him: “It is enough to read one story of Hassouna Mesbahi in order to know how the Tunisian person lives, how he thinks, and what his own tales and legends, as if you lived in Tunisia for decades.”

“From the beginning, I made sure that my stories and novels stemmed from the small village in which I was born and raised, and from the reality of my country and its ancient and modern history,” he said of this experience.

In a statement to “Independent Arabia”, the Tunisian poet and translator Adam Fathi says: “I said more than once, since the eighties of the 20th century, read one book by Hassouna Al-Mesbahi, and you become one of his loyal readers. Perhaps the most prominent thing that catches you in his works is the interweaving between reality and fiction, mixing bitterness and despair with irony and hope, and opening the Tunisian character to the world, so the novel is a cry for help interspersed with satirical jokes and leads to a loud giggle. He is not a novelist of abstract imagination, but he frequently rebelled against the terms of the autobiographical charter, so he turned his life into a literary experience.”

Hassouna Mesbahi was not isolated in his tower, according to Tunisian writer and theater director Taher Ajroudi, but “he was close to the people, writers and creators he met in Beirut, Damascus, Cairo, Paris, Berlin, Casablanca and Tangier, cities that the tourist did not pass through, but lived them as if they were personal stations in his biography. The Far Maghreb, in particular, had a special place in its conscience, which constituted a cultural and spiritual haven for it, and left in it friendships and experiences that it cherished.”

Tunisian poet Mohamed Larbi believes that Hassouna Mesbahi “accomplished his mission as a Tunisian and Arab writer and intellectual, who fought his cultural and existential battles with courage, did not compromise, and did not flatter himself. He was a clear pen, a bold voice in the face of ugliness and despicable practices. Even in his darkest times, he remained faithful to reading and writing, in search of his own happiness, of that true knowledge that builds man, stone upon stone, in the face of all attempts at destruction and falsity that sought to abolish and exclude him.”

Mesbahi, he continues, wrote the road from the village of Dhibat to the city of Hafouz: that distance that a young child traveled, afraid of stray dogs, and of the shadows of trees that turn into monsters in the dark. This distance towards words, stories and knowledge remained present in all his works, in the novel, in the biography, and in the memoirs. That road never stopped calling him, even though he walked the cities and streets of the world, as he walked in many books. That path, the path of childhood, fear and discovery, remained as if it were his eternal wound.”

Abderrahim El Kassar is a Moroccan literary critic and cultural journalist who writes for Independent Arabia. His work often explores Arab literature and its intersections with politics, identity, and creativity. Known for his reflective and analytical style, El Kassar situates writers like Hassouna Mosbahi within broader cultural struggles, highlighting how their works resist authoritarianism and preserve freedom of thought while opening Arab narratives to the wider world.