Un romanziere, falsi Messia, turbanti e un esilio: la Cronaca degli ebrei yemeniti di ‘Alī al-Muqrī
(A novelist, false Messiahs, turbans and exile: the Chronicle of Yemeni Jews by ‘Alī al-Muqrī)
in La rivista di Arablit, a. II, n. 4, novembre/dicembre 2012, pp. 89-106.
As he usually does in his works, the Yemeni novelist ‘Alī al-Muqrī faces a vexing theme in The Handsome Jew: a love story between a Muslim man and a Jewish woman, who challenge alone against all the rejection of both communities. The author offers an account of some curious episodes of Yemeni history, now mostly known only within a small circle of specialists. These events, which occurred in the second half of the XVII century, lacerated the social fabric of Yemen: turmoil within the country’s Jewish community culminated in a bizarre and unsuccessful attempt to seize power without weapons. These events were followed by a decade of terrible reprisals culminating in an unprecedented mass expulsion that changed forever the relationship between the two communities.
