Mario Rota, a professor of linguistics, falls while doing his usual morning exercise, spraining his ankle. When he returns to his apartment, the landlord introduces him to the new tenant, Daniel Berkwix, who will live next door to him.
Starting from that moment, everything will change in his life, as the new tenant is his colleague not only in housing, but also at work, and threatens his existence and status. Things will get worse when he visits him in his apartment, and discovers that it is a mirror copy of his apartment itself, with its contents and arrangement.
In the novel “The Tenant,” Javier Cercas writes in a graceful and enjoyable narrative, a breathtaking story that we have no choice but to follow page after page to find out the fate of its hero, and how he will face his new circumstances, while everyone warns him after he checks on his ankle: “The stupidest things can get complicated.” Life sometimes."
The period of writing these stories extended for many years, extending from 1987 with the story “The Smell” to 2013 with the story “May God prolong his life.” They were all written under the weight of heavy tyranny, which made our thinking almost paralyzed and made us free executioners and observers of ourselves. It is “natural” for most of them to be apologized for publishing, as happened with the story “The Smell” which was either apologized for publishing or was ignored by all the newspapers to which it was sent at that time, as well as It happened with several other stories.
All the stories are united by a single concern and a similar atmosphere. Their events take place in the imperial atmosphere, with the meaning of the emperor’s word. The reader does not need effort or help from anyone in deciphering it. They speak of a general concern that everyone feels the burden of, without exception. Some were vocal about it at the times when the stories were written. Some people kept it quiet, but despite the fact that the majority were forced to remain silent, and those who opened their mouths paid a heavy price for not remaining silent, for everyone it was a heavy burden that a person could not get used to, or at the very least hope that it would go away.
These stories were among the forms of expression of that general pain. Some of them were destined to come out to the screen - in some short periods of relief - to reach the audience, even in different formulations from the stories in the book, and some of them remained imprisoned until circumstances allowed them to appear on the pages of this book in your hands.
This research discusses language as a distinctive feature of a society (Syrian society), and monitors the changes that have occurred in it as the political, economic, cultural and social circumstances of this society change according to the context in which events take place, especially in light of the wave of protests that swept many countries in the Arab world in the context of what was called "Arab Spring"; The linguistic change witnessed by this society was shaped by the collective influence of those regions that witnessed these protests and is spreading thanks to the globalization of cultural communication that exists now.
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