1953The Pillar of Salt
Albert Memmi
Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, a poor Jewish boy from the old quarter of colonial Tunis, comes of age torn three ways between his Berber-Jewish origins, the Arab-Muslim city around him and the French education that promises escape and delivers exile. Memmi maps the real Tunis: the cramped Jewish hara, the Arab medina and its souks, the European lycée of the Ville Nouvelle, the synagogue, and the shadow of the Second World War, when the German occupation drives Tunisia's Jews into forced-labour camps.
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