Karim Kattan, a Palestinian Francophone writer, signs his third work, "Septentrionale," with Elyzad publishing. With the permission of the publishing house.
Abandoned checkpoints, careening jeeps, a sky vomiting blood and meteor-men crashing into hills. In this synchronized deluge, the outlines of a country shrink before one's eyes. There is only this highway running north, illuminated by a protective star: the Septentrionale. Joseph and Maryam race down it at full speed. They are the last witnesses to this land in flames. Behind them, nothingness has already swallowed the landscape. Welcome to Palestine? To Gaza?"If you like!" replies Karim Kattan when asked about Septentrionale (Elyzad, published Sept. 4), the apocalyptic road trip by the Palestinian novelist from Bethlehem. If war is the ever-present background noise, it unfolds in an unmapped geography, a world where life is measured in "piastres" and cities bear ancient-sounding names: Urusalim, Iunu, Araa,...
Abandoned checkpoints, careening jeeps, a sky vomiting blood and meteor-men crashing into hills. In this synchronized deluge, the outlines of a country shrink before one's eyes. There is only this highway running north, illuminated by a protective star: the Septentrionale. Joseph and Maryam race down it at full speed. They are the last witnesses to this land in flames. Behind them, nothingness has already swallowed the landscape. Welcome to Palestine? To Gaza?"If you like!" replies Karim Kattan when asked about Septentrionale (Elyzad, published Sept. 4), the apocalyptic road trip by the Palestinian novelist from Bethlehem. If war is the ever-present background noise, it unfolds in an unmapped geography, a world where life is measured in "piastres" and cities bear ancient-sounding names: Urusalim, Iunu, Araa,...
