About twenty allophone students educated at La Briquerie high school in Thionville met, Thursday, April 6, the Palestinian author Karim Kattan. A meeting in French prepared in advance by the two professors-librarians, Aurore Eiden and Naïma Hinoune.
Born in Jerusalem in 1989, Karim Kattan taught literature before embarking on writing. The choice of French imposed itself on him for his first novel entitled The Palace of the Two Hills , published by Elyzad editions in 2021 and awarded the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie. “I wanted to convey, for a French audience, what an angry young Palestinian is,” says the author, who played the game of questions and answers. And to explain: “It is not a book which speaks about Palestine for the Palestinians, but rather a book which speaks about Palestine for people who do not know it. »
“A colonized country”
Question after question, the doctor in comparative literature lifted the veil on certain aspects of the writing process and the carnal relationship he has with his country, a “very lively” country, where people and landscapes are very different. He mentioned the difficulty for a Palestinian to move around his small country, the passes, the official documents that must be presented at the “check points” to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem for example. “Palestine is a colonized country, with people who have very different relationships with colonization,” the author further emphasizes.
Asked about his writing work, he replied: “It’s hard to write a novel. It’s long, it’s slow and quite painful […] But it’s great, we discover by writing. Everything falls into place gradually. In front of an attentive audience, also impressed, Karim Kattan will perhaps have enabled these young people who have fled poverty or war for some to tell their story in French one day. Who knows ?
