The Front Cover of 100 Very Short Stories
100 Very Short Stories by Mohamed Bouhouch.
A new book titled 100 Very Short Stories by writer Mohamed Bouhouch was recently published by Imprimerie Nouha Editions in Sfax (Tunisia) under the publications of the Tozeur section of The Tunisian Writers’ Union. The book came in 115 pages of small size including 100 very short stories. This short story collection was introduced by Moroccan writer Mustafa Laghtiri. Among what he said was:
“As far as style was concerned, the writer relied on a ripe narratorial language in his stories. Thus, he did not fall in the trap of the pompous poetic language that is overloaded by metaphor which distracts the attention of the short story writer and the reader from the rest of the storytelling’s elements as was and still is the case of many who were lured by the lights of the very short story, so they burnt their wings and much glow of the storytelling was burnt with them..
Here the short story writer uses narrative sentences that are very fond of capturing the mercurial fictional moment which disappears after a short interval of time if we cannot handle it properly.
Here Tunisian writer Mohamed Bouhouch is preoccupied with multifarious subjects delving into the hearts of the human issues which worry the minds of creators everywhere. But favour was given to issues lived by the short story writer and with which he had an immediate experience because he captures what the eye sees and what the mind and emotion believe.
In this collection Bouhouch used sarcasm because it is among the most important distinctive character of ripe writing which gives it a deep human dimension; away from the tragic language of sadness which harms creation more than doing good to it…”
It is worth mentioning that this is the first publication of Tunisian writer Mohamed Bouhouch in the field of the very short story and it is the ninth to the credit of the writer who published five poetry collections in Arabic, one book of poetry in French, another book in French which is a sociological research about the phenomenon of single mothers in Tunisia, and one poetry collection translated into English titled (Tahta Dhilal Al-Abadiyya) Under the Shadows of Eternity.
This book came as a new addition to the Tunisian narrative corpus in the field of the very short story as it is a new genre in Tunisia and publications of this genre are counted on the fingers of the hand.
Originally appeared in the online Moroccan magazine kisa.alfawanis.com.
You can read the original text in Arabic here.
Translated from Arabic by Ali Znaidi.
