{"id":300936,"date":"2015-04-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2015\/04\/09\/why-this-book-should-win-street-of-thieves-by-btba-judge-george-carroll\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:22","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:22","slug":"why-this-book-should-win-street-of-thieves-by-btba-judge-george-carroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2015\/04\/09\/why-this-book-should-win-street-of-thieves-by-btba-judge-george-carroll\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This Book Should Win – Street of Thieves by BTBA Judge George Carroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Carroll is the World Literature Editor of Shelf Awareness<\/a> and an independent publishers\u2019 representative based in the Pacific Northwest.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

Street of Thieves<\/i><\/a> – Mathias \u00c9nard, Translated by Charlotte Mandell
\nOpen Letter Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last year, I advanced Mahi Binebine\u2019s Horses of God<\/i><\/a>, tr. from the French by Lulu Norman, for The Best Translated Book Award<\/a> a book that follows the lives of a group of teenage soccer players from Sidi Moumen who become Islamist martyrs, suicide bombers in the 2003 Casablanca attacks.<\/p>\n

This year I\u2019m championing Street of Thieves<\/i> by Mathias \u00c9nard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell, in which one of the main characters becomes involved with an Islamist group turned Jihadist.<\/p>\n

I hope that I\u2019m not developing a pattern \u2013 not the French translation part, the radicalism part. <\/p>\n

Street of Thieves<\/i> is a coming-of-age story of two childhood friends set mostly in Tangiers during the Arab Spring. Lakhdar, the narrator, wants freedom \u2013 to travel, smoke weed, earn money, read French noir detective novels, have sex with Spanish women. His friend, Bassam, introduces Lakhdar to the \u201cGroup for the Propagation for Islamic Thought\u201d for whom he becomes their seller of books and pamphlets. <\/p>\n

After the organization severely beats a neighborhood bookseller, their paths split, Lakhdar moves away, Bassam gets deeply into the group. Bassam might be involved in a stabbing in Tangiers, a bombing in Marrakesh, and ultimately an assassination. <\/p>\n

\u201cMen are dogs,\u201d says Lakhdar, \u201cthey rub against each other in misery, they roll around in filth and can\u2019t get out of it\u2026\u201d Exiled from his family because of an indiscretion with his cousin, Lakhdar starts with nothing, lives on the street, takes a series of jobs, goes on the run, falls in love, and ends up in a Barcelona neighborhood of junkies and prostitutes, the Street of Thieves. <\/p>\n

Lots of big words \u2013 fate, fear, corruption, revolution, liberty, love and loyalty and tragedy, but no theme bigger than identity. Is Lakhdar more than his religion? More than his nationality? In the final pages of the book, he testifies \u201cI am not a Moroccan, I am not a Frenchman, I\u2019m not a Spaniard, I\u2019m more than that . . . I am not a Muslim, I am more than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Love of language, the study of language, the beauty of language are all manifested in the book. Love of books \u2013 \u201cwhich is the only place on earth where life is good\u201d \u2013 certainly won this judge over.<\/p>\n

Street of Thieves<\/i> should win The Best Translated Book Award because \u00c9nard has filtered multiple complex social issues through the eyes of a wonderfully likable narrator. If I\u2019ve made that sound dreadfully serious, it\u2019s my mistake. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Carroll is the World Literature Editor of Shelf Awareness and an independent publishers\u2019 representative based in the Pacific Northwest. Street of Thieves – Mathias \u00c9nard, Translated by Charlotte Mandell Open Letter Books Last year, I advanced Mahi Binebine\u2019s Horses of God, tr. from the French by Lulu Norman, for The Best Translated Book Award […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[60326,58256,15316,2396,48366,16976,28166,60316],"class_list":["post-300936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-arab-spring","tag-btba2015","tag-charlotte-mandell","tag-french","tag-george-carroll","tag-mathias-enard","tag-open-letter-books","tag-street-of-thieves"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333686,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300936\/revisions\/333686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}