Flutes of Death

The first book in a trilogy that continues with Mother Spring and Birth at Dawn, this naturalistic allegory is about two Arabic-speaking police officers who set out in the Atlas Mountains in search of a revolutionary. Once in this mysterious region, the officers, with their postcolonial, Westernized manners, are challenged by the ferociously suspicious and independent-minded Berber peoples. Chraïbi illustrates the clash between the modern and the traditional, between those who are willing to make cultural accommodation and those who are assertive of ancient traditions. At the same time, in language that is sometimes acerbic and sometimes lyrical, he illustrates the predicaments common to all ordinary people, whether urban or peasant. First published in French in 1981.