BookBlast review of What I Know About You by Eric Chacour and A Man With No Title by Xavier Le Clerc
Both novels shed light on the complex lives of people living between cultures. Each in its way amplifies the voices and stories of marginalized communities that are often overlooked in mainstream narratives.
Éric Chacour, a Quebec author of Syrian-Lebanese origin, has received considerable attention in 2023 for his first novel What I Know About You, the winner of numerous awards. The story is set in 1980s Cairo during a period of significant change following President Anwar Sadat’s assassination by Islamic militants. Hosni Mubarak became president, normalized relations with Israel, and introduced economic reforms that led to unrest. Islamic fundamentalism attacking various target groups including Coptic Christians, and government repression, also grew during this time.
The novel follows Tarek, a young doctor from a well-to-do family who is married to the woman he loves, works as a doctor running the prestigious practice he inherited from his father, and has a good relationship with his sister and his mother — the matriarch of the family. He also runs a smaller practice in an impoverished neighbourhood. His orderly life is upended by an affair with Ali, the son of a Zabbaleen, a poor rubbish picker. Their passionate affair is scandalous not only due to societal taboos on homosexuality but also because of Ali’s background as a male prostitute, serving some of Tarek’s patients. After Ali is killed by Islamic fundamentalists — or so it seems — to protect his family, Tarek leaves Cairo for Montreal which is a centre for Christians of various families from across the Middle east. Meanwhile, what Tarek does not know, is that someone back in Egypt is piecing together the shreds of his story and trying, chapter by chapter, to retrace the narrative of his life.
Winner: Première Plume award 2023, Prix Femina des Lyceens, Prix des Cinq Continents 2024, The French Booksellers Prize, The Prix du Calq 2024, Prix du Club Irresistibles 2024
A Man With No Title is both a tribute to Franco-Algerian Xavier Le Clerc’s father, Mohand-Said Aït-Taleb — an immigrant whose life was shaped by poverty and exile — and a universal exploration of working-class struggles, post-colonial exploitation and the immigrant experience in France. It serves as a reminder of the contributions and sacrifices of immigrants across generations.
In 1939, Albert Camus wrote a series of articles for the French newspaper Alger Républicain about the conditions of the Kabyle people, indigenous Berbers living in mountainous Algeria who were neglected by the French colonial authorities. He emphasized that while French Nationals and the Pieds Noirs — those settlers who had emigrated to Algeria during French colonization — enjoyed relative comfort, the Kabyles were left to fend for themselves in appalling conditions.
Le Clerc’s father was born in 1937 in Kabylia, one of “a swarm of ragged with beautiful eyes roaming open sewers.” He migrated to France in 1962 and ended up in Caen in Normandy living in an immigrant hostel amidst other hard labourers. In 1968 he was hired to work for the Société Métallurgique de Normandie. In 1970 he was granted leave of absence to marry his young cousin who joins him in France. Despite exploitation and hardship, Hamid’s love for his wife and nine children is unwavering as he struggles to make ends meet. A man of few words, he cannot read or write, and is very angry, exploding at the slightest thing. The emotional distance between father and son is shaped by their shared yet distinct experiences of migration and identity.
As a young man, Le Clerc leaves to study, and to grapple with his homosexuality. Changing his name to Xavier Le Clerc symbolizes his reclaiming of autonomy over who he was — and is — stands as a powerful act in the context of cultural, familial and sexual identity.
Winner: Prix du Roman Métis 2023
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