New Laroui
My friend H. forwarded me this link to the Le Monde review of Fouad Laroui’s new novel, La femme la plus riche du Yorkshire. It’s about a young Moroccan university professor named Adam Serghini, who arrives in the English countryside for work, and, bored out of his mind, decides to conduct an ethnological study of the population. He sits in their preferred habitat (the pub) and takes scrupulous notes of their mores. He soon meets a rich old lady, with whom he obviously has nothing in common. Clash of civilizations–and typical Laroui humor–ensues.
Anyway, don’t bother looking up a date of release in the U.S. As incredible as it sounds, Laroui has never been translated into English. (Don’t look at me. I tried to get several editors interested in him, even offering to translate him, but no one has shown any interest.)