Hassouna Mosbahi
Hassouna Mosbahi was a Tunisian author, literary critic and freelance journalist.
Life and career
Hassouna Mosbahi was born in 1950 in the village of Dhehibat in the governorate of Kairouan, Tunisia, and studied French at the Tunis University.He suffered persecution at the hands of the government of Habib Bourguiba and so sought refuge in Europe, moving to Munich, Germany in 1985. He returned to Tunisia in 2004.
He published four collections of short stories and six novels and has been translated into German and English. He also published dozens of translations of French literary works into Arabic.
His work won several literary prizes, including the Munich Fiction Prize, and the 2016 Mohamed Zefzef Prize for Fiction. In 2010 he refused a "Judges' Choice" prize from the Prix Littéraires COMAR D’OR for his novel Ramād al-ḥayāh '', for what he described as "reasons he will keep to himself".
Mosbahi lived in Hammamat, Tunisia. He died on 4 June 2025, at the age of 75.
Political views
Mosbahi was vocal in his opposition to the 2011 Tunisian revolution in interviews and speeches, as well as in his 2015 novel ʼAšwāk wa-yāsamīn . This political stance had been sharply criticized.Prizes
- Toucan Fiction Prize in Munich, 2000, for German translation of Halwasāt Taršīš
- Mohamed Zefzef Prize for Fiction, 2016
- Prix Littéraires COMAR D’OR, "Judges' Choice", 2010
Selected works
Novels
Miḥan tūnisiyya, 2017Baḥṯan ʻan al-saʻāda , 2017ʼAšwāk wa-yāsamīn , 2015La nasbahou fi enahri maratayn, 2020Yatīm al-dahr, 2012Ramād al-ḥayāh , 2009- Hikāyat tūnisiyya (A Tunisian tale), 2008. English translation 2012 by Max Weiss.Nuwwārat al-diflā, 2004. German translation 2013 by Regina Karachouli.Wadāʻan Rawzālī, 2001. German translation 2004 by Erdmute Heller.al-ʼAḵirūn, 1998Halwasāt Taršīš, 1995. German translation by Regina Karachouli.