The story of Jamil and Buthaina is one of the most famous stories of platonic love in Arab heritage. From it, narrators generated minor stories that put “chastity” in doubt. This captivating love was described by a poet and a woman from Bani Adhra as a model for lovers who live the impossible love and are devoted to the beloved one and do not stop being passionate about him in situations of nearness and distance. A love that Jamil felt during twenty years of his life and remained with him until his death.
This “biography” was not devoid of conflicts between emotions and the body. It is a shared biography, even if the interest in the lover prevails over the beloved.
In an amazing poetic language, Nizar Chaqroun weaves together the “last day” of the lives of Jamil and Buthaina with a tragic aspect in which he combines history and imagination, placing his characters confronting the secrets of the experience of love that is on the verge of hatred.
When the beloved turns into an image in a poet’s world and ends up a stranger to himself
Dead in living form.
Nizar Chakroun was born in the majority city of Sfax in the Al-Efranji district on April 23, 1970. He worked as a lecturer at the Tunisian University and was elected Dean of the Higher Institute of Arts and Crafts in Sfax in 2011. He was a cultural advisor to the Ministry of Culture in Doha in 2015. He has published more than 20 books and won the award. He received the National Award for Poetry in 1993, the Arab Award for Fine Criticism from the Sharjah Government in 2008, and the Al-Bashir Khareef Prize for Novel in Tunisia in 2023. In his academic career, he combined the specialization of Arabic language, literature, and civilization, with the specialization of arts sciences and techniques, just as in his literary life he combined poetry. The novel, artistic criticism, and translation.
