Khalil - Yasmina Kharda

Samhain 2015. Ar mhótarbhealach sa Fhrainc, tá Khalil, Moslamach fir 23 bliana d’aois, ag triail ar chathair Pháras, crios pléascach fáiscthe lena chliabh. Ar an Stade de France i gcathair Pháras atá a thriail, é réidh le buille trom a bhualadh in aghaidh an tsaoil ghránna ina thimpeall agus Síoraíocht na Mairtíreach a bhaint amach.

Ach ar oíche sin an uafáis, níl Khalil i measc na mbráthar a chuireann iad féin chun báis…

An tAistritheoir

Tá réimse leathan leabhar aistrithe ag Máirín Nic Con Iomaire, iad foilsithe ag Futa Fata. Chaith sí tamall de bhlianta ag obair mar iriseoir agus léiritheoir le RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. Is é Khalil an chéad úrscéal do dhaoine fásta atá aistrithe aici.

Léirmheas Antain Mhic Lochlainn:
“Deirtear gurb é bun agus barr an dea-aistriúcháin cinneadh ceart amháin a dhéanamh agus cinneadh ceart eile ina dhiaidh sin. Sin atá déanta ag [an aistritheoir] i gcás ‘Khalil’. Tá anáil na Fraincise le brath air gan an Ghaeilge a bheith aduain. Sárshaothar.”

Khalil, a twenty-three-year-old Belgian of Moroccan descent, plans to detonate a suicide vest in a crowd outside the Stade de France on November 13, 2015. Explosions are rocking Paris, at cafés and the Bataclan theater, and when other bombs drive the stadium crowd to flee in his direction, near the Metro, his time has come. He presses his button, and . . . nothing. Fearing he has failed in his mission for Fraternel Solidarity (FS), an ISIS affiliate, Khalil has little choice but to blend in with his would-be victims and run. Back in Belgium, he must lie low and avoid his militant brethren and the authorities.

He relies on his family and friends for places to stay, but he keeps the truth about himself secret. All the while, he contemplates what he almost did, and what he will do next—particularly when it comes to light that his vest accidentally had been a harmless training unit all along, and FS has a new mission planned for him.

In this daring, propulsive literary thriller, Yasmina Khadra takes readers to the margins of Europe’s glittering capitals, through neighborhoods isolated by government neglect and popular apathy, if not outright racism. And he brings to life an unusual protagonist, a young man struggling with family, religion, and politics who makes fateful choices, and in doing so dramatises powerful questions about society and human nature.

Translated into Irish by Máirín Nic Con Iomaire.