“My mother’s life!” “. By Magyd Cherfi. South Acts. 270 pages. 21.50 euros.
Her name is Taos, an ancient divinity’s name carved out for this sovereign woman since her widowhood. Inflexible and extravagant, she exasperates Slimane, the eldest of his six children, destabilized like his brothers and sisters by the metamorphosis of their suddenly emancipated mother. Wife mistreated by her husband all her life, confined to the home, here she is in full rebirth despite joint pain, Berber queen, Kabyle variation of a Calamity Jane wearing an Afghan cap and wearing Adidas sneakers. A vintage oriental baba
Slimane decides in front of this unknown mother capable of surprising her children after an existence of sacrifices.
The story of a reconciliation
The eldest of the Kaoui siblings, self-proclaimed king of halal burgers with his Jewish partner, has been tracing his path for a long time at a distance from his family, beyond the reach of cultural injunctions but also from a mother so undemonstrative of whom he has learned to understand moods on the feelings barometer: Her kindness ranges from weak to moderate.”
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With irresistible verve, this family portrait recounts in its caustic tone the schizophrenia of generations torn between two cultures. Among the Kaoui, where the “Berbero-Leninist” tendency prevails over traditions, we manage as best we can in the gray areas of identity. Slimane, divorced father of teenage sons, unemployed (Covid and the ukase launched in the neighborhood against his association with a Jew got the better of the food truck), feels caught in the tectonics of identity plates to the point of always wondering if he is French enough, Arab enough, or not enough of both with this desire to “blend into an Arab when too many whites clustered together per square meter and the opposite in the midst of too many Algerians. »
Magyd Cherfi responds to existential questions by revealing a truculent humor which softens the sharp lines of this first novel, a tragicomedy dominated by a formidable portrait of a woman. The individual story of Taos, Mohamed Ali of the punch line for which his son bears the brunt (“between us, it smelled like tires after a brake”), echoes that of undermined relationships on both sides of immigration by prejudices and the weight of traditions. Behind the emancipation of an Algerian woman at the end of her life, the former lyricist of the Zebda group also describes with a cheerful pen the path to a reconciliation that is still possible.
