Rachid Benzine’s novel goes beyond images

While the media assaults us with atrocious images. Furthermore, new overwhelmingly, we sometimes come to forget humanity lurking behind violence. However, The writer has this power to extend the journalist’s gaze, to explore what the raw facts leave in the shadows. Consequently, Rachid petrol Except in this: he knows how to put the right words on invisible lives. However, give flesh to what the image alone cannot tell. – Rachid benzine's novel goes beyond

Julien Desmaes is a photographer. In addition, Since his arrival rachid benzine’s novel goes beyond in Gaza, he has lived in the heart of a theater of madness and misery. In addition, Death becomes ordinary there. Nevertheless, While he would like to grasp moments of daily life. For example, his newspaper claims him clichés of tears in tears, injured soldiers or ruined buildings. Similarly, Admittedly, an image can move the whole world, but it cannot be enough alone.

In a less affected, more shopping district, Julien sees a bookstore. Consequently, In front of piles of books placed on the sidewalk, an old man reads sipping a tea. However, It seems out of time, transported by the grace of its reading. Therefore, This is the real image for Julien! In addition, But when pressing the trigger, a shadow alerts the bookseller.

-“Do you not believe,” he adds, “that a portrait is gaining from what we know what is hidden?” You seem sympathetic to me. Therefore, This rachid benzine’s novel goes beyond place seems fun, surprising, perhaps even folk. The modest bookseller on the doorstep has undoubtedly intrigued you. But isn’t there behind all a story? That of a life. That of a whole people sometimes. »»

Before telling him his. the old man offers Julien two pounds: The human condition by André Malraux and The earth is narrow and other poems by Mahmoud Darwich. The next day, Julien finds Nabil, the bookseller, who finally agrees to confide.

Born in 1948 a Muslim mother. a Christian father, he left his village in Bilad-el-Cheïkh, driven out with his family by the soldiers. All were parked in a camp in the Vallée du Jourdain. War, survival, exile. Nabil found refuge in books and in the theater of Shakespeare. In April 1967, the camp was bombed by air strikes.

“Chaos, humiliation, destruction. All their lives, many Palestinians will only have known this treatment. And all rachid benzine’s novel goes beyond their lives too, many Israelis will have seen the Palestinians only through the prism of terrorism. These inverted images explain the impossible reconciliation. »»

By reading the Job BookNabil wonders: why is his life only suffering? But he refuses to resign himself. He wants to understand. Where to look, if not in books, as his brother advised him before dying? Reading becomes his breathing, his escape. By creating a library in the camp, Nabil transforms into a sorer of knowing, as a bearer of hope.

Back in Gaza in 1973, fate is still on its family. We do not heal the absence of dear beings. But the man survives in the refuge of his bookstore. where he continues to advise the works which carry the words necessary for everyone.

Because a book contains the life, memory and pain of peoples. And a bookseller. like a reader, has not only the rachid benzine’s novel goes beyond duty, but the deep desire to transmit, in order to better understand.

If the photos, reports and expert analyzes are essential, they benefit from being extended by reading. The novel. by its magnitude, offers the writer the space necessary to deploy a thought, to confront points of view, to explore complexity. It also allows you to take the time: that of making a character exist, of fully embodying him.

And when this character is called Nabil, the meeting becomes both rich and striking. Because this bookseller shows deep humility and refuses to be locked in a frozen identity. He is a man marked by pain, but who does not give in to resignation or bitterness. Offering books is, for him, a form of resistance.

In a place where men are reduced to a region. where we try to erase lives and memories, Nabil transmits a history and a wisdom.

A rachid benzine’s novel goes beyond strong novel of this literary school year.

Rachid petrolborn in 1971 in Morocco. is an Islamologist, a Franco-Moroccan teacher and a writer recognized for his novels and his plays. It is today one of the important figures of French -speaking liberal Islam.

Rachid benzine's novel goes beyond

The man who read booksRachid Benzine, Julliard editions, August 21, 2025, 128 pages, € 18, ISBN 978-2-260-05686-7.