“From one shore the other”, the weight of the origins

The narrator From one shore to another whose surname we will never know tells of his. In addition, life in the Parisian suburbs in the 1990s alongside his two inseparable friends. Similarly, Elias. Furthermore, the friend dancer rapper who always has a good word, with whom he listens to the music that takes the guts, and even the famous Supplement to be buried at Sète beach de Brassens. For example, This boy dreams of being a baker to support his numerous family. Nevertheless, The other. For example, the luminous Layla with whom he is madly in love, gives flavor to the existence undermined by an inner rage of the narrator. Moreover, With her. Therefore, he would “from one shore other”, weight like to flee the city and her turpitudes, ignoring that she is promised at a wedding in the village. This young man lives with a depressive mother. a Breton who cherishes him and relentlessly intimate him of “pass one’s lifeBut never gives him an index on his father, a Lebanese whom he suspects of having belonged to a militia. His comfort. he discovers it in poetry, placing himself to learn the dictionary entirely while avoiding being taxed from Intello by his comrades. “”The words have me. the words haunt me, they only leave me quiet if I can weave sentences or worms with those I choose with the rhythm and the order that I impose on them. »

Enchanting places – "from one shore other", weight

His world rocks when Elias, as uprooted as him, converts to Islam. “When we do not know where we come from. nor “from one shore other”, weight where we are going, it is sometimes too difficult to bear, then we find refuge where we see a light lit and in the neighborhood it is so full to crack of lost kids that it is converted all the time». Broken by this change, he decides to leave for Beirut, this city unknown with suffocating heat. A neighbor advises him to go to Mme Hind. Through her benevolent presence. this woman will make her lighter life, nourishing him delicious breads in the Zaatar, by making him crisscross enchanting places, with his luminous memory which tells the story of the country without ever mentioning war.

Can we escape the imprint of its origins? How to overcome this constant heartbreak between here. there, these real or imaginary lands where one would like to find your place? What place to give to the ghosts that haunt us? “from one shore other”, weight These questions underlie this bewitching text which reveals by subtle touches the journey of a bruised being. A poetic novel, sometimes enigmatic, on the fragility of the human condition.

Isabelle Wagner

Dima Abdallah, From one bank the other, Ed. Sabine waspieser, 2025, 230 p., 21 €.

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