Karim Miské

Dall'avvento dell'Islam, il destino di musulmani ed ebrei è stato strettamente collegato, ma poco più di un secolo di conflitto è stato sufficiente per nascondere in memoria tredici secoli di una storia comune spesso pacifica e talvolta armoniosa . Inizia nella penisola arabica, dove l'Islam è nato nel settimo secolo, con la parola e l'insegnamento del suo fondatore, Maometto, e continua a Gerusalemme, dove nel XII secolo il conquistatore Saladino rispetterà chiese e sinagoghe, durante il mitico periodo d'oro del regno di al-Andalus (711-1492) e nella casa di saggezza giudeo-musulmana fondata a Baghdad dalla dinastia abbaside ... Fino alla rottura violenta del ventesimo secolo, le due religioni hanno continuato a dialogare, non senza episodi dolorosi, come il massacro di Granada, nel 1066, durante il quale la popolazione ebraica viene decimata dai suoi vicini musulmani. Il giudaismo ha quindi fortemente ispirato Maometto, che riconosce i profeti? Ibrahim (Abraham), Moussa (Moses) o Joseph (Youssef). Tre secoli dopo, è sotto l'influenza dei pensatori musulmani che il rabbino Saadia Gaon proporrà un'interpretazione della Torah tratta dalla filosofia greca.
Dal 610 ad oggi, dall'Arabia al Medio Oriente attraverso l'Impero ottomano, l'Andalusia e il Maghreb, questa complessa e poco conosciuta storia viene raccontata cronologicamente, con una fluidità che non esclude il senso del dettaglio . Un affascinante viaggio nel tempo, portato avanti dalle spiegazioni accademiche ma sempre accessibili di oltre trenta ricercatori provenienti da diversi paesi, con sequenze di animazione originali e un archivio fotografico e cinematografico di grande forza.… (més)

In the multi-culti melting-pot of the 19th Arrondissement, things seem to be unmelting rapidly, as ultra-orthodox Jews and Muslims compete for visibility on the street corners. A young woman has been brutally murdered in circumstances that suggest a religious motive, and two officers from the local police station are trying to sort out the mess. Was it the nice but not-quite-sane Ahmed, a single man who lives downstairs from the victim in an apartment full of American crime novels, or could the crime be part of a sinister global narcotics conspiracy involving bent cops, Jehova's Witnesses and Hassidic rabbis? No, surely not...?

OK, this is an obvious first novel by someone who's seen too many American films, and it has a lot of awkward strokes in it, with some formulaic characters and a ludicrously overcomplicated plot that requires the narrator to break with convention and show us who did it at an early stage so that we have some sort of hope of keeping track of what's going on.

But it is also curiously endearing. Miské's world is one in which evil is everywhere and organised religion is nothing but a lot of frustrated men in silly outfits taking out their resentment on God, but there are still enough young people with common-sense and the determination to stand up for their liberal values. Even if it does have more than its fair share of Islamists, HLMs, poetry and hip-hop, this isn't the pessimistic world of Jean-Claude Izzo (not yet, anyway...). Miské wants us to see that good can triumph over evil, at least provisionally, but he does throw in a destabilising reference to the way the bad guys always get caught in the Mickey-Mouse comics to remind us that this isn't necessarily the real world he's talking about here.

Another thing that struck me about the book is how Miské keeps insisting that you can't force individuals into the little handful of ethnic or religious identities that match journalistic agendas. Everyone has their own particular complicated past to deal with, and many of those turn out to be non-standard. Whom do you identify with if your parents come from different cultures (and perhaps you didn't even have the chance to get to know them), if you have moved between countries several times, if the people around you are trying to reinvent an impossible ideal view of a world that never existed... Miské's use of mental illness in the story is also far from the usual clichés, and he remembers to include plenty of strong female characters. An entertaining book that can stand up for itself, despite a few minor issues.… (més)