El Hachmi, Najat – L’últim patriarca (2008)

Synopsis

"L’últim patriarca" is the story of a personal rebellion against an order established thousands of years ago. It is also a lucid look at the victims and the executioners who are involved. Mimoun and his daughter are born to play the role assigned to them by patriarchy, but changes in the circumstances around them will be crucial in reversing the order of things. This is a family story, a story where the internal contradictions of the characters emerge to mark a relationship made of misunderstandings. A story defined by the breakup of separation. Mimoun Driouch’s daughter narrates her life from the time he is born until she is about to start college. She wants to understand what has made her father the kind of person she is, what circumstances have made her an authoritarian and despotic figure, while at the same time initiating various attempts to get rid of the weight she has in her life. From a masterful and intentional use of the resources of the oral tradition, the writer Najat El Hachmi builds a modern fable that includes moments of great tenderness and moments of brutal drama, all seasoned with a sense of humor which scratches corrosion. The result is a type of novel that, both for the conflicts it deals with and for the literary way of dealing with them, has so far been unpublished in Catalan literature.

(SOURCE: Grup 62)

El Hachmi's page at "Lletra. La literatura catalana a internet"

Interview to El Hachmi at VilaWeb TV