Published in Tunis in 1938, Ninette of Sin Street is one of the first works of Tunisian fiction in French. Ninette’s author, Vitalis Danon, arrived in Tunisia under the aegis of the Franco-Jewish organization the Alliance Israélite Universelle and quickly adopted—and was adopted by—the local community.
Ninette is an unlikely protagonist: Compelled by poverty to work as a prostitute, she dreams of a better life and an education for her son. Plucky and street-wise, she enrolls her son in the local school and the story unfolds as she narrates her life to the school’s headmaster. Ninette’s account is both a classic rags-to-riches tale and a subtle, incisive critique of French colonialism. That Ninette’s story should still prove surprising today suggests how much we stand to learn from history, and from the secrets of Sin Street.
This volume offers the first English translation of Danon’s best-known work. A selection of his letters and an editors’ introduction and notes provide context for this cornerstone of Judeo-Tunisian letters.
Cuprins
Introduction: Colonial Society from the Gutter Up
1. Ninette of Sin Street
2. Appendix B: A Visit to the Jews of Djerba (Travel Notes), 1929
3. Appendix A: A Flaneur in Sfax, 1918
4. Appendix C: Mission to Gabès, 1937
5. Appendix D: A Swan Song, 1963
Despre autor
Vitalis Danon (1897–1957), born in Edirne (Adrianople) in the Ottoman Empire, spent much of his life in Sfax, Tunisia. A novelist, teacher, and school director for the Alliance Israélite Universelle, he is best known for
Ninette of Sin Street, his last work of fiction.
Lia Brozgal is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Univeristy of California, Los Angeles. She is the author of
Against Autobiography: Albert Memmi and the Production of Theory (2013) and co-editor of
Being Contemporary: French Literature, Culture and Politics Today (2016). Her work has been recognized by the American Council of Learned Societies, the University of California Presidential Grants, and the Camargo Foundation.
Sarah Abrevaya Stein is Professor of History and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies at Univeristy of California, Los Angeles. Her recent books include
Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (2016),
Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (2014), and
Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950 (2014).
Jane Kuntz holds a doctorate in French from the University of Illinois and is a translator of French-language fiction and nonfiction. Recent translations include
A History of the Grandparents I Never Had, by Ivan Jablonka (2016);
Islam and the Challenge of Civilization, by Abdelwahab Meddeb (2013); and Meddeb’s experimental first novel,
Talismano (2011). Kuntz lived and worked in Tunisia from 1975 until 1993 as a teacher and translator and as an educational adviser for AMIDEAST-Tunis.
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