Thursday, April 30th | 5 PM
THE FERTILITY OF EVIL – Book presentation with Amara Lakhous
Townsend Center For the Humanities
220 Stephens Hall, Berkeley
From Italy’s Flaiano prize-winner Amara Lakhous, comes THE FERTILITY OF EVIL: A Novel (Other Press Trade Paperback). A heady psychological thriller spanning the history of postcolonial Algeria, Lakhous’s latest offers a criminal investigation that plumbs the seedy underbelly of Oran. Influenced by Leonardo Sciascia’s writing and Amara Lakhous’s own return to Oran after years spent living in Italy as a political refugee, this gripping historical novel grapples with the weight of history in everyday life in Oran, the intertwining of religion and politics and mines sixty years of the author’s country of origin’s transformations to weave a crime story that looks beyond identifying a single perpetrator to uncover the hidden networks and masterminds that render a complicated picture of Algeria’s shadowy history.
Italian writer Lakhous (Divorce Islamic Style) blends a thrilling mystery with an illuminating dive into the history of postcolonial Algeria…At no expense to the tautness of his story or the depth of his characterizations, Lakhous traces a line from the country’s promising independence in 1962 to its struggles with terrorism in the ’90s and the corruption of the Algerian ruling class. Readers will find a lot to enjoy.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“The author’s real subject is the heave and crush of modern, polyglot Rome, and he renders the jabs of everyday speech with such precision that the novel feels exclaimed rather than written.” —THE NEW YORKER
ABOUT
AMARA LAKHOUS
Amara Lakhous is an Italian author, journalist, and anthropologist of Algerian origin. His novel Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio received Italy’s Flaiano prize and was adapted for film. He is currently Professor in the Practice in the Department of Italian Studies at Yale University.
ALEXANDER ELINSON
Alexander Elinson is an Associate Professor of Arabic and head of the Arabic program at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His translations include Youssef Fadel’s A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me and A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me, Yassin Adnan’s Hot Maroc, and Khadija Marouazi’s History of Ash.
Event sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco