The Hospital

Fiction & Literature, Psychological, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fantasy, Contemporary, Literary
Cover of the book The Hospital by Ahmed Bouanani, New Directions
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Ahmed Bouanani ISBN: 9780811225779
Publisher: New Directions Publication: June 26, 2018
Imprint: New Directions Language: English
Author: Ahmed Bouanani
ISBN: 9780811225779
Publisher: New Directions
Publication: June 26, 2018
Imprint: New Directions
Language: English

A tour de force: an utterly singular modern Moroccan classic

“When I walked through the large iron gate of the hospital, I must have still been alive…” So begins Ahmed Bouanani’s arresting, hallucinatory 1989 novel The Hospital, appearing for the first time in English translation. Based on Bouanani’s own experiences as a tuberculosis patient, the hospital begins to feel increasingly like a prison or a strange nightmare: the living resemble the dead; bureaucratic angels of death descend to direct traffic, claiming the lives of a motley cast of inmates one by one; childhood memories and fantasies of resurrection flash in and out of the narrator’s consciousness as the hospital transforms before his eyes into an eerie, metaphorical space. Somewhere along the way, the hospital’s iron gate disappears.

Like Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl, the works of Franz Kafka—or perhaps like Mann’s The Magic Mountain thrown into a meat-grinder—The Hospital is a nosedive into the realms of the imagination, in which a journey to nowhere in particular leads to the most shocking places.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A tour de force: an utterly singular modern Moroccan classic

“When I walked through the large iron gate of the hospital, I must have still been alive…” So begins Ahmed Bouanani’s arresting, hallucinatory 1989 novel The Hospital, appearing for the first time in English translation. Based on Bouanani’s own experiences as a tuberculosis patient, the hospital begins to feel increasingly like a prison or a strange nightmare: the living resemble the dead; bureaucratic angels of death descend to direct traffic, claiming the lives of a motley cast of inmates one by one; childhood memories and fantasies of resurrection flash in and out of the narrator’s consciousness as the hospital transforms before his eyes into an eerie, metaphorical space. Somewhere along the way, the hospital’s iron gate disappears.

Like Sadegh Hedayat’s The Blind Owl, the works of Franz Kafka—or perhaps like Mann’s The Magic Mountain thrown into a meat-grinder—The Hospital is a nosedive into the realms of the imagination, in which a journey to nowhere in particular leads to the most shocking places.

More books from New Directions

Cover of the book Tres (Bilingual Edition) by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book An Empty Room: Stories by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Poems of Dylan Thomas by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Adventures of Mao on the Long March by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Driver's Seat by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book Clothes for a Summer Hotel: Play by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book Dublinesque by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book A Bernadette Mayer Reader by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Colossus of Maroussi (Second Edition) by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Chandelier by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Strange Case of Rachel K by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The Girls of Slender Means (New Directions Classic) by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book The German Lesson by Ahmed Bouanani
Cover of the book A Little Lumpen Novelita by Ahmed Bouanani
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy