This literary short story "Kafka in Tangier" by Mohammed Said Hjiouij invites us to read "revisited" Kafka's "Metamorphosis", with real pleasure! The author was inspired by this famous short story, and reinterpreted the theme of the staggering transformation of a man who sleeps, and wakes up in the skin of a monster.

The short story sets the scene in Tangier, nowadays, where the hero Gregor Samsa, knows the same family and professional setbacks as those depicted in Kafka: become the only breadwinner, following the brutal and unexplained forfeiture of his father, he exercises two professions. Totally disillusioned, he is entirely dependent, however married, but... "under the control" of his father, his mother, his sister and his wife, who all live together.

This fictional and literally haunting story features protagonists of the Muslim faith in North Africa. The author takes care to depict for us the customs of the Moroccan High Atlas, to the port of Tangier, a former Spanish colony. Everything is there! The colors, sounds, language, traditional prayer, weave the canvas of a tale, already approached by Kafka, but from another angle!

The hero, so proud to belong to the noble lineage of a Prophet, and pure Berber, nevertheless finds himself totally submissive and powerless to react, faced with the hostility shown by his father especially.

From his metamorphosis into a repulsive insect, he identifies himself so much with the animal, that he adopts his behavior and his thoughts... of an insect!

As in Kafka's novel, here the same pernicious workings of society take shape - attacking a model employee for a simple delay - The true nature of each of the actors in the book is revealed, crescendo, in an incredible way! Beneath polished appearances, each carefully conceals the engine that slyly drives them! I loved!

It is after having put on this mask, which the beast represents, that Gregor Samsa, paradoxically, frees himself! He can, at last, be Himself, under the guise of repugnant ugliness.

The epilogue thunders like a roar of thunder!
Very clever, the one who will get out of there, unscathed!

Read it! Unforgettable modern version of Metamorphosis! ( )

An interesting short novel that follows the trajectory of Kafka’s Metamorphosis but transferred to a complex household in Morocco. Instead of turning into an insect like Gregor Samsa, Jawad the protagonist here, turns overnight into an ape. I wasn’t sure if this alluded to passages in the Quran where men are turned into monkeys as a punishment, but it’s clear from the regular references to the stench of his room and other habits that he is regarded as filthy by the rest of his family. As the story unfolds it becomes clear, however, that it is not Jawad who is in need of punishment but his wife (who immediately leaves) and his father. His sister too has an interesting story. Forced to leave university by her father, then abandoned by her boyfriend her full destiny is not revealed until the very end. With regard to Jawad, his story presents a number of ambiguities, summed up in the conventional phrase from 1001 Nights (footnoted at the end of the book) “there was, or there wasn’t,” & for me, some of the questions remained unresolved. Although the ending came rather suddenly this was an enjoyable read. ( )

A fascinating short novel, based on Kafka's Metamorphosis, but set in Tangier. It is told from multiple perspectives and time frames, leaving the reader to work out exactly what triggered the hero's transmogrification, and what he got up to at night.

Kafka in Tangiers retells the story of Kafka’s Metamorphosis but within a complex Arab family situation. The story is well told from multiple points of view and time shifts. The reader is constantly guessing what parts of this extraordinary tale are real or not, what is mystical and what is metaphorical. All the strands come together in a surprising finale. The negatives are relatively minor: I’m not sure that the storyteller’s occasional breaking of the ‘fourth wall’ by addressing the reader works, and the occasional mixture of tenses within a paragraph can make you pause to reread, taking you out of the story and making you wonder how hard this might have been to translate into English. Overall I enjoyed this novella-length work. ( )

This novella-length story self-consciously borrows the basic structure from Kafka's Metamorphosis: one morning, the protagonist finds himself having undergone a radical transformation. Another strand of literary borrowings comes from the storytelling of One Thousand and One Nights. In the course of story, all sorts of hidden family secrets are brought to the reader's attention, shedding some light to why the protagonist's world and self-image might be transforming even without the Gregor Samsa inspired physical monstrosity. I liked this book for being something different from anything I've read recently, and also for the way it played with Metamorphosis and other literary materials. The small number of translator's notes were also useful. ( )