Originally written in Arabic and later translated into French by Souad Labbize, the novel earned the 2024 Arab Literature Prize and is expected to receive the prestigious Francophone Prize for Literature in 2025. This recognition highlights not only the literary quality of the work but also its relevance in a broader socio-political context, where memory, identity, and the legacy of colonial and post-colonial histories continue to shape contemporary discourse.

The narrative is anchored in a dramatic night, December 7, 1935. Eleven chapters, eleven voices: a polyphonic storytelling style that allows each character to recount what really happened that night. These voices—of witnesses, victims, and figures both powerful and obscure—reconstruct a night of downfall and reckoning in a once-revered house. Through this multiplicity of perspectives, the novel explores how truth is fractured, how memory is contested, and how trauma lingers across generations. The house itself becomes a symbol: both a physical space and a metaphor for a society unraveling under the weight of secrets, betrayal, and the consequences of silence.

The novel is also deeply rooted in Ghénim’s intellectual and emotional journey. A linguistics researcher by training, she uses language as a vessel of memory and explores identity through historical revision. She pays tribute to figures such as Tahar Haddad, a trade unionist educated at the Zitouna Great Mosque in Tunis, who dared to rethink Islam and the Quran considering modernity. After the 2011 Tunisian revolution, Haddad, like many reformers, faced backlash, a climate of fear that left a lasting impression on the author.

“I had to write this novel,” Ghénim said, revealing how fear for Tunisia’s future, and the pain of watching it falter, compelled her to speak through fiction. Among the characters, Louiza, the servant, stands out as her favorite character.

With The Disaster of the House of Notables, Amira Ghénim offers a powerful novel, part historical investigation, part family saga, part love letter to a Tunisia that refuses to be silenced. Through its intricate structure and emotionally charged prose, the novel testifies to the enduring strength of stories, and to the belief that literature can illuminate the darkest corners of history and serve as a beacon in times of uncertainty.