Arabic translator of Os Lusíadas discovered Portugal thanks to Saramago’s Nobel
It was in 1998 with the news of the Nobel Prize in Literature for José Saramago that Abdeljelil Larbi woke up to a country called Portugal, small like his Tunisia but with a very rich history. “Suddenly, there were interviews in the newspapers, reports that spoke even of the writer but also curiosity about Portugal and a curiosity developed in me that ended up being greatly reinforced when I became friends with a Portuguese who was studying at Tu, Tiago, who is from here, from Benfica, and who spoke to me with great charm about his country”, says the current professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and who wants to see his Arabic language published YOU lusíadas 450 years since the first edition of Camões’ work, during the reign of D. Sebastião.
And yes, this conversation takes place in Benfica, the Lisbon neighborhood where Abdeljelil Larbi lives. And he chose a very popular pastry shop in the area, the Caliph, a curious coincidence that this name meeting with a Muslim Arab taking place on the terrace of a cafe is that of the top chef of Islam. But I must add that the professor comes from the president of one of the Arab countries that most reveres the pre-Islamic past, especially the glorious Carthage, and that since the independence of France in 1956 has very well reconciled religion and modernity, thanks to the his first, Habib Bourguiba.