Interview
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Meeting in Paris with the Libyan writer for the release of his first novel, the narrator of which is a man who enjoys domestic activities, contrary to his entourage and tradition.
In a light green embroidered garment, Mohammed Alnaas is dressed like a Libyan milord. In a café near the Arab Institute in Paris, where a meeting with readers awaits him at the beginning of June, he details his clothing: pants, vest and jacket of the same fabric, “It’s a bit like your three-piece suit,” laughs the writer born in 1991. Winner of the international prize for Arabic fiction (awarded by the Booker Prize Foundation) he is warm and gentle. Like its central character? Bread on Uncle Milad’s table is a dive into the world of flour and sourdough. Son of a master baker, Milad lives in the Gaddafi era, he is a being on the margins, he likes domestic activities and adapts to this status while Zeinab, his wife, makes a career outside . It will reveal itself to be more complex and tormented as the pages progress. This first novel humorously questions the relationships between men and women in a society where there are many gender constraints. Mohammed Alnaas lives between Libya, near Tripoli, and Tunisia, his “second country”.
When and how did you write this novel?
I started in 2018, I had this proverb in my head, “a family with an uncle Milad” [«proverbe libyen utilisé pour blâmer un homme qui n’exerce pas son pouvoir sur les femmes dont il a la responsabilité et, ce faisant porte préjudice à leur honneur» indique le roman, ndlr]and this saying made me want to imagine a story.
