L’Amas ardent of Yamen Manai or How to Think the Political Crisis in the Mirror of Ecology

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to show how the Tunisian writer Yamen Manai, describes, in L’Amas ardent, the mechanisms of an environmental crisis coupled with a political crisis. He looks at it both with nostalgia for the “pre-crisis” time, that of a harmonious relationship between man and nature, but also with concern about a world in danger. This ecological concern seems to assert itself, through a magical realism and imagery giving the impression of an atmosphere of general “crisis”. This story, in the form of a tale, subtly mixes ecology and political satire in modern Tunisia. Le Don, a beekeeper living with his bees, far from men and the hustle and bustle of the world, one day sees his hives ransacked and thousands of his bees cut in two. Wondering about this terrible disaster, he goes out searching to understand this mystery in a land upset by the Arab Spring, where God’s fanatics raged. The writing of the crisis, discarding any form of pathos, is based on an ironic wit reminiscent of Voltaire’s philosophical tales and a reflection on environmental issues that leads to an ecological fantasy.