Mother Spring [a novel]
  • 1989/118 pages

Mother Spring [a novel]

Driss Chraibi, translated by Hugh A. Harter
Paperback: $17.50
ISBN: 978-0-89410-402-2

Beginning with an epilogue set in the present, this novel quickly moves back to the time of the generation after Muhammad—a time when North Africa, the home of the Berber peoples, was overrun by Arab armies. With strong characters and a compelling sense of place, Chraïbi demonstrates how the Berbers tried to maintain their cultural identity in the face of the overwhelmingly rapid and powerful spread of Islam throughout their world. First published in French in 1982.

Born in Morocco in 1926, the late Driss Chraïbi embraced French education and culture early on and supported French colonial rule; but he soon became equally critical of the Occidental and the Islamic worlds, and his writing often focuses on the unresolved conflicts between the two. Chraïbi practiced medicine for a few years, then turned to writing in 1952. He has published more than a dozen highly acclaimed novels. The late Hugh A. Harter was president of Horizons for Learning.