New publication: “Homes of Mud,” by Hassan Belarbi

On November 12, 2020, the Euro-Arab Foundation presented this work in its virtual space, with a foreword by Laila Karrouch and translation by Mohamed El Morabet. Published by Diwan.

Hogares de Barro (Homes of Mud) is a sincerely written love letter that beclouds the entire view of childhood. Hassan Belarbi explores memories of his old neighborhood in Nador, with the innocence of the child who watched on as his home town grew too small for him. The novel is a kind of impressionist portrait, a sort of emotional mapmaking through which we travel to places that marked an entire generation. There is a dialogue with the characters who directly forged the man who is now transcribing these words with the intimate logic of a person delving into the past to give meaning to his present. Nobody defined it better than Rainer Maria Rilke, when he wrote that “Man’s true homeland is childhood.” Homes of Mud is that homeland that nobody wants to forget.

Published in July 2020 by Editorial & Librería Diwan, it was translated into the Spanish by Mohamed El Morabet. In her foreword,  writer Laila Karrouch says of the novel:  “This journey given to us by Belarbi in Homes of Mud through prose brings us closer to a special culture which never ceases to amaze us, including both those of us already familiar with it and those who know nothing about it at all. The Rif region has a lot to offer, and thanks to novels like this, we can get a glimpse of the magic hidden in certain corners of that world, so awesome and small at the same time.”

A native of Nador, Morocco, Hassan Belarbi has a PhD in Chemical Engineering and is a tenured professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Almería. Chair of the Euro-Arab Professorship on the Environment and Sustainable Development with the Euro-Arab Foundation in 2007, Belarbi is a correspondent member of the Hassan II Academy of Sciences and Technology and the president of the Environment and Education Association (AMAE).

Further information (Euro-Arab Foundation)