Marc Trévidic

Marc Trévidic is a Parisian magistrate and has been one of nine judges specialising in anti terrorism enquiries. He acted in this role from 2006-2015. Ahlam was published in 2016 and is a novel which focuses on terrorism in Tunisia at the time of the fall of Ben Ali's government in 2011. Trévidic had published several essays on the struggles against terrorism, but Ahlam is a novel that tells the story of a family torn apart by division when a young man becomes a Mujahideen.

The story begins in 2001 when Paul Arezzo; Parisien and world famous artists arrives in Kerkennah an archipelago off the coast of Tunisia. He is seeking a retreat from the professional art world of Paris and plans to stay on Kerkennah an island that he remembers from childhood. He is still a young man in his twenties, but is rich and he thinks of buying a house to rest a recuperate. He befriends a local fisherman Farhat and employs him to take him around the coastline. Farhat invites him to meet his family, his wife Nora and two children; the boy Issam and the girl Ahlam. Paul becomes infatuated with the beautiful and educated wife of the fisherman and takes the two children under his wing; they are all fascinated by the famous man from Paris with seemingly unlimited wealth. Paul's retreat becomes idyllic and when he buys a large house on the coast it becomes a play ground for the two children. With the approval of Nora he teaches Issam to paint and encourages Ahlam in her piano studies. He discovers that the two children are incredibly talented and Paul has grandiose dreams of supporting them both while they pursue their art in Paris.

Tragedy strikes the family and Issam becomes involved with his childhood friend Nourdine, who has become a fervent Muslim. He is seduced into the world of Islam, realising that it speaks to him as an Arab youth and he becomes drawn into the world of the Mujahideem as they put themselves on a war footing intent on filling the vacuum when Ben Ali's corrupt government falls from power. This puts him at odds with his family and particularly with the Christian Paul and he abruptly leaves his family to join a cell of jihadists.

Issam's conversion to a jihadist is well described and sets the scene for an inevitable clash with his sister Ahlam who becomes involved in the women's movement against the Charia laws, when the fundamentalists attempt to seize power. As a novel I do not think it works particularly well as the reader can guess where it is going almost from the start. The clash between the artistic world of Paul and the political realities of Tunisia is interesting and the juxtaposition of the two cultures is well described; it is sensitively done, as is the telling of the love story. Trévidic's experience in dealing with Islamic terrorism enables him to set up a convincing back story, however he is less convincing when depicting the artistic cultural world of Paul Arezzo. The description of the sea and coastline of Kerkennah does much to take this book into a world that the reader can see and visualise, however the family life of the islands inhabitants does not ring quite so true. As a story of star crossed lovers against a topical background it has its moments and so 3.5 stars.… (more)