Abdelwahhab Meddeb

1946 -

Tunisian novelist and poet.

Abdelwahhab Meddeb was born in Tunis and studied literature, art history, and archaeology in Tunisia and Paris. He subsequently taught history of architecture at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. Although he writes in French, his books are rich with references to Arabic texts and contain many quotations in Arabic, revealing not only his knowledge of the language but also his familiarity with Arabic literature and civilization. Meddeb's first novel, Talismano (1979), shows his constant concern with the past and his reaction to his Arab-Islamic culture.

The interest of Meddeb's writings lies, to a large extent, in his original handling of language and his experimentation with words. His point of departure is the bilingual situation in the Maghrib, which gives the writer access to two cultures and languages and an opportunity to juggle them and, possibly, combine them. The starting point in his novel Phantasia (1989; Fantasia) is the human body. Meddeb conceives of writing as an act of perpetual creation, the result of an inner inspiration. The book revolves around the Muslim mystic Ibn al-Arabi, about whom Meddeb later wrote a collection of poems, Tombeau d'ibn Arabi (1988; The tomb of Ibn Arabi). The classical Arabic religious and cultural heritage inspired Meddeb's latest book, Suhrawardi, Chihab alDin Yahya: Récits de l'exil occidental (1993; Suhrawardi Shihab al-Din Yahya: narratives of western exile).

Bibliography

Mortimer, Mildred, ed. Maghrebian Mosaic. Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner, 2001.

— AIDA A. BAMIA