Talismano (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781564786296)

"Talismano" is a novelistic exploration of writing seen as a hallucinatory journey through half-remembered, half-imagined cities--in particular, the city of Tunis, both as it is now, and as it once was. Walking and writing, journey and journal, mirror one another to produce a calligraphic, magical work: a palimpsest of various languages and cultures, highlighting Abdelwahab Meddeb's beguiling mastery of both the Western and Islamic traditions. Meddeb's journey is first and foremost a sensual one, almost decadent, where the narrator luxuriates in the Tunis of his memories and intercuts these impressions with recollections of other cities at other times, reviving the mythical figures of Arab-Islamic legend that have faded from memory in a rapidly westernizing North Africa. A fever dream situated on the knife-edge between competing cultures, "Talismano" is a testament to the power of language to evoke, and subdue, experience.

Author: Abdelwahab Meddeb
ISBN-10: 1564786293
ISBN-13: 9781564786296
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Language: English
Published: 05/03/2011
Pages: 265
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.50w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 05/15/2011 pg. 18