| Title of the Novel/Novella/Play | Author’s Name | Water Body Name | Water Body Type | Publication Details | Year of Publiction | Genre | Theme | English Translation | Translator | Country of Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Au-delà des rizières | Naivo | Madagascar Islands | Indian Ocean | Éditions Sépia | 2012 | Novel | Set in the early nineteenth century, Beyond the Rice Fields describes the arrival of British missionaries and French industrialists in Madagascar and the havoc this wreaked on Malagasy society. | Beyond the Rice Fields | Allison M. Charette | France |
| Ève de ses décombres | Ananda Devi | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Éditions Gallimard | 2006 | Novel | The novel explores Mauritius as an island nation through the lives of young women who are trapped in in their country’s endless cycle of fear and violence. | Eve out of Her Ruins | Jeffrey Zuckerman | France |
| Le Chercheur d’or | J.M.G Le Clezio | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Gullimard | 1985 | Novel | Clezio depicts life on sugar cane plantations on Mauritius in the 1890s, life aboard a trading schooner in the Indian Ocean against the backdrop of World War I. | The Prospector | Carol Marks | France |
| Le silence des Chagos | Shenaz Patel | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Editions de l’Olivier | 2017 | Novel | The novel tals about displacement, forced exile and political oppression of of the people of Diego Garcia, one of the 56 islands that form the Chagos Archipelago, situated in the Indian Ocean. | Silence of the Chagos | Jeffrey Zuckerman | France |
| Le dernier frere (The Last Brother) | Nathacha Appanah | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Editions d’Olivier | 2007 | Novel | Set in Mauritius, the novel explores the lives of island communities against the backdrop of World War II. | The Last Brother | Geoffrey Strachan | France |
| Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine (Voyage to the East Indies and China) | Pierre Sonnerat | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Collaborative publication in Paris, sold by the author, as well as booksellers Froullé, Nyon, and Barrois le jeune. | 1782 | Travel narrative / Natural history account | Pierre Sonnerat’s Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine is a record of his scientific and exploratory experiences in the Indian Ocean, which includes extensive accounts of the ports, flora, and customs of Ceylon along the way. The narrative retains a sense of Enlightenment inquisitiveness with regards to the culture of colonialism. The writer imagines the island as both a place of wonder and a destination of colonial intent. Sonnerat describes the coasts, routes of trade, and botanical life with an eye for European knowledge about Sri Lanka’s maritime and ecological merit. | Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine (Voyage to the East Indies and China) | Francis Magnus | France |
| Voyage de Pyrard aux Indes Orientales (Voyage of Pyrard to the East Indies) | François Pyrard de Laval | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Pierre de Bergeron, in France | 1611 | Travelogue / Shipwreck narrative | François Pyrard de Laval’s Voyage de Pyrard aux Indes Orientales recounts the dramatic loss of his ship near Ceylon and his survival in the Maldives and elsewhere in South Asia. His rich descriptions of marine life, navigation, local customs, and cultures, make it one of the earliest eyewitness accounts by a European in the regions. Pyrard’s vivid descriptions of peril, trade, and cultural exchange demonstrate human frailty and fascination in early modern maritime exploration. | Voyage de Pyrard aux Indes Orientales (Voyage of Pyrard to the East Indies) | Hakluyt Society | France |
| L’homme pressé (The Man in a Hurry) | Paul Morand | Indian Ocean (symbolic reference to Ceylon) | Ocean | Éditions Gallimard, Paris, France | 1941 | Novel | Although it is not strictly set in Ceylon, Paul Morand’s L’homme pressé uses the island as a symbolic site of escape, timelessness and contrast with Western haste. Morand’s modernist narrative, which engages with the psychological speed of the twentieth-century, uses culturally exotic images of islands and non-Western people, as a counterpoint to the relentless pace of modernity, with Ceylon being one of the islands. The novel exists in the context of the European fascination with the Indian Ocean, as a place for a hoped-for imagined state of tranquillity and some philosophical distance from industrial modernity. | The Man in a Hurry | Euan Cameron | France |
| Le royaume de Kandy (The Kingdom of Kandy) | François Renault | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Nouvelles Editions Latines, France | 1974 | Historical study / Non-fiction | François Renault’s Le royaume de Kandy is a historical analysis of the Kandyan kingdom as it engaged with European powers through maritime and diplomatic encounters. Utilizing French and Dutch archives, Renault creates an understanding of how both coastal and inland politics in Ceylon were influenced by maritime trade routes and colonial interests in the region. This work reinforces the centrality of Ceylon in Indian Ocean geopolitics, particularly its resisistance to European hegemony, and represents a connection between maritime history and postcolonial interpretation. | France | ||
| Ceylan, perle de l’océan Indien (Ceylon, Pearl of the Indian Ocean) | Gaston Perrot | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Société d’éditions géographiques, maritimes et coloniales, Paris | 1932-1933 | Travelogue / Descriptive Narrative | A French travel writing full of imagery that renders Ceylon as the “pearl of the Indian Ocean.” In Perrot’s structured writing, the ports, coastline, plantations, and culture of the island are from a 1930s French colonial standpoint—highlighting the maritime routes and trade within the natural landscape of the island. In addition to describing the geography of Ceylon, the author hint at the romanticism of the oceanic context within and surrounding Ceylon, and it is also well illustrated. | France | ||
| Voyage de Siam des Pères Jésuites envoyés par le Roy à ce Royaume (often includes sections titled Voyage dans l’Inde et à Ceylan) | Abbé Guy Tachard | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Claude Barbin, Paris, France | 1686–1690 (multiple volumes; first editions in the late 1680s) | Travel Narrative | A direct Jesuit narrative of French voyages to Siam and Ceylon in the 17th century, combining an account of religious, geographic, and navigational knowledge. The document also encompasses early European interpretations of Ceylon’s shores and routes through the Indian Ocean based trade system. | A Relation of the Voyage to Siam, Performed by Six Jesuits, Sent by the French King, to the Indies and China, was published anonymously. | France | |
| Les Pêcheurs de perles de Ceylan | Georges Bizet (Composer); Eugène Cormon & Michel Carré (Librettists) | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Heugel & Cie, Paris | 1863 | Opera (three acts) | Taking place in a coastal settlement of ancient Ceylon, the opera unfolds the tale of two pearl fishers, Nadir and Zurga, whose friendship is soon stretched to its limits when both of them fall for the same woman, Leïla — a priestess who is sworn to chastity. The ocean, pearl-diving, and the landscape of the island realm of Ceylon act as prominent themes of beauty, danger, and fate. | The Pearl Fishers | France | |
| Les Îles du Paradis: Ceylan et ses rivages (The Islands of Paradise: Ceylon and Its Shores) | Paul Morand | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Berger-Levrault Editions | 1925 | Travel literature / Descriptive prose | Morand’s lyrical portrayal of Ceylon as a tropical paradise situated within France’s broader fascination with the “Orient.” The Indian Ocean becomes a poetic space of reflection, commerce, and colonial imagination. | France | ||
| Anguille sous roche | Ali Zamir | Indian ocean | Ocean | Le Tripode, Paris | 2017 | Novel | Told in a single breath, the novel recounts the reflections of a young girl drowning in the Indian Ocean. As she recalls her short, tragic life, Zamir constructs a lyrical meditation on injustice and womanhood. Thematically, it examines gendered suffering, fate, and voice. The sea is both her killer and confessor, symbolizing memory and transformation. Its Oceanic essence lies in turning the ocean into a narrative consciousness — fluid, eternal, and mournful. | English, Italian and Arabic | France | |
| Les Rochers de Poudre d’Or (The Rocks of Gold Dust) | Nathacha Appanah | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Gallimard | 2003 | Novel | Nathacha Appanah’s “Les Rochers de Poudre d’Or” narrates the journey of Indian indentured laborers to Mauritius in 1892. It follows diverse characters—an exiled man searching for his brother, a poor farmer, a widow fleeing religious persecution, and a naive card player—as they embark on a perilous voyage aboard the ship Atlas. They hold onto dreams of prosperity fueled by legends of gold beneath Mauritius’s rocks but face harsh realities of servitude and cultural collision upon arrival. The novel vividly captures the Indian Ocean as a site of migration and exile, using maritime metaphors to poetically highlight the laborers’ pain, hopes, and identity struggles. This oceanic dimension enriches the novel’s exploration of migration, cultural memory, and belonging in the Indian Ocean world | France | ||
| Paul et Virginie | Jacques- Henri Bernardin de Saint- Pierre | Indian Ocean, The river of Fan-Palms, the Bay of the Tomb | Ocean | Didot l’aîné | 1788 | Novel | Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre is a tragic love story set on the idyllic island of Mauritius. Paul and Virginie, childhood friends, fall deeply in love as they grow up together in a harmonious natural environment. Virginie is sent to France for education and inheritance but faces hardships there. She returns to Mauritius, but the ship carrying her is caught in a violent storm. Attempting to save her, Paul watches helplessly as Virginie, hindered by her modesty and heavy clothes, drowns. Devastated, Paul soon dies from grief. The novel highlights themes of innocent love, nature’s dual power, colonial society, and the poignant impact of fate and loss on human lives | Paul and Virginia | Helen Maria Williams | France |
| Les Jours Kaya | Carl de Souza | Lagoon Waters of Mauritius | Lagoon | Original Publisher: Éditions de l’Olivier English Publisher: Two Lines Press(2021) | 2000 | Novel | Carl de Souza’s Kaya Days is set against the backdrop of the 1999 Mauritian riots following the police arrest and death of the musician Kaya. The novel follows 16-year-old Santee, who sets out to bring her younger brother Ram home from school, only to find he is missing amidst the chaos of burning streets and social unrest. Over two days, her search becomes a transformative journey through violence, fear, and confusion. As Santee navigates this turbulent world, she confronts harsh realities, experiences personal growth, and begins to claim agency over her life, reflecting the broader upheaval in Mauritian society | Kaya Days | Jeffrey Zuckerman | France |
| Georges | Alexandre Dumas | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Lévy Frères | 1843 | Novel | Alexandre Dumas’s Georges is set on the Isle de France (now Mauritius) from 1810 to 1824 and centers on Georges Munier, the son of a wealthy mulatto planter. Although light-skinned and able to pass as white, Georges faces racial prejudice both at home and abroad. After his father leads Black militiamen to fend off a British invasion, Georges and his brother are sent to France for education. Georges excels in Parisian society but returns to Mauritius to confront the injustices of slavery and racial discrimination. He leads a failed slave revolt, is sentenced to death, but is ultimately rescued and escapes with his family, amid dramatic conflicts and naval battles. The novel addresses colonialism, racism, and interracial love. | George; or, the Planter of the Isle of France. | Alfred Allinson, Tina Kover | France |
| La Quarantaine | J.M.G Le Clezio | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Gallimard | 1995 | Novel | J. M. G. Le Clézio’s La Quarantaine is set in 1891 when two brothers, Léon and Jacques Archambau, along with other passengers, are forced into quarantine on Flat Island near Mauritius due to a smallpox outbreak aboard their ship. The novel explores their confinement and interactions with the island’s native workers, focusing on Léon, who becomes captivated by the local culture and a young métisse woman, Suryavati. The narrative delves into themes of illness, isolation, cultural encounter, and personal transformation, with detailed observations of nature and human resilience amid the harsh conditions of quarantine. It also reflects Le Clézio’s broader meditations on exile and belonging | France | ||
| Les Mutins | Loys Masson | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Éditions de la paix | 1951 | Novel | Loys Masson’s Le Mutins is a poetic novel blending romance, epic, and themes of rebellion, set against the backdrop of colonial and wartime turbulence. Mauritius plays a key role as the author’s birthplace and symbolic setting, reflecting the island’s complex history and natural beauty. The narrative explores human defiance and existential struggle, with Mauritius serving as a metaphorical space where cultural, political, and ecological tensions unfold, embodying both isolation and interconnectedness. Masson’s work reflects his deep connection to Mauritius, using the island’s landscapes and colonial past as essential elements that shape the characters’ journeys and philosophical reflections within the story. | France | ||
| Made in Mauritius | Amal Sewtohul | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Gallimard | 2012 | Novel | Made in Mauritius by Amal Sewtohul is a political satire chronicling the life of Laval, a Sino-Mauritian boy raised in a cargo container in Port Louis’s Chinatown. The novel traces Laval’s journey from his childhood on the island through migration to Australia, where he carries his friend Feisal hidden in a container. The story reflects the layered multicultural and diasporic realities of Mauritius, highlighting ethnic diversity, colonial legacies, and social upheavals. Through vivid historical and cultural detail, it explores themes of identity, migration, and belonging within both the island and broader transnational contexts. Mauritius itself emerges as a dynamic backdrop shaping character and narrative. | Nadiyah Abdulltif | France | |
| À l’autre bout de mo | Marie-Thérèse Humbert | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Éditions des deux rives | 1979 | Novel | À l’autre bout de moi by Marie-Thérèse Humbert is a novel set in Mauritius that explores themes of racial identity, colonial legacy, and social stratification. The story centers on twins Anne and Nadege, who grapple with their métissage (mixed heritage) and the societal pressure to conform to racial and class expectations. The novel vividly portrays Mauritius’s complex racial and colonial history, emphasizing how these legacies shape personal identities and family dynamics. Humbert’s narrative highlights the profound impact of colonialism and racism on individual lives and underscores the ongoing struggle for authenticity and belonging within a fractured society | France | ||
| Soupir | Ananda devi | Indian Ocean | Ocean | Éditions Gallimard | 2002 | Novel | Soupir by Ananda Devi is set in a small, arid village on Rodrigues, a dependent island of Mauritius. The villagers suffer from scarcity of food and water and lack motivation to improve their plight. They follow a man named Ferblanc, a descendant of slaves who suffers from vitiligo and occupies a liminal position in society—accepted by the men but rejected by the women. Ferblanc persuades the villagers to cultivate cannabis on barren land despite harsh conditions. The narrative weaves together multiple voices and personal stories, reflecting themes of marginalization, despair, and social fragmentation. Devi’s novel is a powerful exploration of isolation, hybridity, and resilience in a marginalized community, blending poetic and magical realism elements to bring forth the complexities of identity and survival in the Indian Ocean context. | France | ||
| La Republique des Imbeciles | Mohamed Toihiri | Indian ocean | Ocean | L’Harmattan,Paris | 1985 | Novel | At the beginning of the book, John Ménard is on a boat with a small group of mercenaries who are on a mission that they do not know the specifics of. They quickly find out that they are heading to the Comoros to capture President Guigoz at his beachside hut. It quickly becomes evident that Guigoz is Ali Soilih and Ménard is Bob Denard (real name: Gilbert Bourgeaud). (Incidentally, a popular French baby food is called Guigoz.) Capturing the president and dealing with the guards are no problem for the mercenaries. Lying on a sofa with two naked women, he is intoxicated. Without resisting, he gives himself up and is put in jail. Guigoz reflects on his life for the remainder of the book. | English and Arabic | France | |
| L’Île mystérieuse | Jules Verne | Southern Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1875 | Novel | In The Mysterious Island a group of men escape imprisonment during the American Civil War by stealing a balloon. Blown across the world, they are air-wrecked on a remote desert island. In a manner reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe, the men apply their scientific knowledge and technical skill to exploit the island s bountiful resources, eventually constructing a sophisticated society in miniature. | France | ||
| Bleu-Blanc-Rouge | Alain Mabanckou | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Presence Africaine | 1998 | Novel | The protagonist’s journey from Pointe-Noire (a coastal city on the Atlantic) to France literally begins by crossing the ocean, marking his transition from the African continent to the European metropole. The Atlantic therefore functions as a corridor of migration but at the same also reflects illusion and betrayal since the protaganist’s imagined “Eldorado,” misrepresents modernity, wealth, and disillusionment. | Blue White Red | Alison Dundy | France |
| Le devoir de violence | Yambo Ouologuem | Accra, Atlantic shore | Ocean | Editions du Seuil | 1968 | Novel | The novel is set in the fictional empire of Nakem, modeled after West African empires, with clear historical and geographical allusions to the region around present-day Mali where the Niger River is the central artery for trade, settlement, and cultural development. The ruling Saïf dynasty is depicted as leveraging the river’s resources and strategic value to maintain dominance and extend their authority. Everyday life for the population revolves around the Niger’s presence, from market activity to cultural rituals, emphasizing the river’s status as central to survival and prosperity within Nakem.The river, however, is not romanticized; it is described as observing the brutality and shifting tides of conquest, oppression, and resistance, much like the broader landscape of the novel. | Bound to Violence | Ralph Manheim | France |
| Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre) | Jules Verne | Fictional subterranean ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1864 | Novel | Science fictional journey to the centre of the earth including journeying in a subterranean sea. | First by Griffith & Farran (London) in 1871 | France | |
| The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (Voyages et Aventures du capitaine Hatteras) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1866 | Novel | British Captain Hatteras’ expedition to the North Pole and his eventual escape from there. | George Routledge and Sons in 1874 | France | |
| In Search of the Castaways (Les Enfants du capitaine Grant) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1867-68 | Novel | A worldwide search for Captain Grant whose ship met with an accident in sea. | J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1874 | France | |
| A Floating City (Une ville flottante) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1871 | Novel | Life of a married couple and the lover of the wife aboard the ship Great Eastern on its voyage from Liverpool to New York. | Sampson Low (London) in 1874 | France | |
| The Fur Country (Le Pays des fourrures) | Jules Verne | Arctic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1873 | Novel | Attempts at establishing a fort at 70 degress, north of the Arctic Circle, and their eventual escape from there after an earthquake. | N. D’Anvers (Pseudonym of Mrs. Arthur (Nancy) Bell) in 1873 | France | |
| Around the World in Eighty Days (Le Tour du monde en quartre-vingts jours) | Jules Verne | Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, South China Sea, East China Sea, Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean | Sea, Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1872 | Novel | Adventures of voyagers out to travel the world in eighty days because of a wager. | George Makepeace Towle in 1874 | France | |
| The Mysterious Island (Lile mysterieuse) | Jules Verne | Southern Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1875 | Novel | Science Fiction adventures in an imaginary Pacific island with direct ties to In Search of the Castaways and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. | Agnes Kinloch Kingston and W. H. G. Kingston in 1875 | France | |
| The Survivors of the Chancellor (Le Chancellor: Journal du passager J. R. Kazallon) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean, Sargasso Sea | Ocean, Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1875 | Novel | Account of the last voyage of the British sailing ship The Chancellor through journal entries of one of its passengers. | Sampson Low, Marston, Low, & Searle in 1875 | France | |
| Off on a Comet (Hector Sarvadac) | Jules Verne | Fictional Sea on a comet | Fictional Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1877 | Novel | People from the Earth are carried away on a comet and return to Earth after an adventure across the Solar System. | Ellen E. Frewer in 1877 (Sampson Low in England) and by Scribner Armstrong in USA. | France | |
| Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen (Un capitaine de quinze ans) | Jules Verne | Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1878 | Novel | Adventures of people on a Pacific whaler ship with tribes in Angola. | George Munro in 1878 | France | |
| Godfrey Morgan: A Californian Mystery (L’Ecole de Robinsons) | Jules Verne | Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1882 | Novel | A voyage around the world starting from California gone wrong leading to being stranded in a Pacific island and the adventures therein. | W. J. Gordon (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivinggton) in 1883 | France | |
| Keraban the Inflexible (Keeraban-le-tetu) | Jules Verne | Bosphorus Strait, Black Sea | Strait, Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1883 | Novel | A simple journey from Istanbul to Scutari across the Bosphorus strait gets complicated due to a new tax leading to a longer journey around the Black Sea. | George Munro (US) in 1883-84, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington (UK) in 1887 | France | |
| The Archipelago on Fire (L’Archipel en feu) | Jules Verne | Laconian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea | Gulf, Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1884 | Novel | Naval adventures around the Mediterranean by a captain from Peloponnesus. | George Munro (US) in 1885, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington (UK) in 1885 | France | |
| Mathias Sandorf | Jules Verne | Mediterranean Sea | Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1885 | Novel | Someone assumed drowned searches the Mediterranean for people responsible for his friends’ deaths from his base at an island. | Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington in 1886 | France | |
| Two Years’ Vacation (Deux ans de vacances) | Jules Verne | Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1888 | Novel | A group of schoolboys are stranded on the Hanover Island near the Chilean coast and finally manage to escape. | Serialised in Boy’s Own Paper in 1888-89, Munro (US) and Sampson Low (UK) in 1889 | France | |
| Cesar Cascabel | Jules Verne | Arctic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1890 | Novel | A French family touring as a circus in the US have to travel back to France by the long way and end up getting stranded in an island on the Arctic Ocean in the process before managing to escape. | Cassell (New York) in 1890 | France | |
| Captain Antifer (Mirifiques Aventures de Maitre Antifer) | Jules Verne | Persian Gulf, Gulf of Guinea, Mediterranean Sea | Gulf, Sea | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1894 | Novel | An adventure novel of treasure hunting along a complicated sea route. | Serialised in The Boy’s Own Paper (Feb-Sep 1895), R. F. Fenno in 1895 | France | |
| Propeller Island (Lile a helice) | Jules Verne | Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1895 | Novel | Adventures of a French string quartet in a city, entirely inhabited by millionaires, on a massive ship in the Pacific Ocean. | W. J. Gordon in 1896 (by Sampson Low as The Floating Island, or The Pearl of the Pacific) | France | |
| Facing the Flag (Face au drapeau) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1896 | Science Fiction Novel | Struggle about a super weapon being built and operated around Bermuda including naval battles involving submarines and ships. | 1897 | France | |
| An Antarctic Mystery (Les Sphinx des glaces) | Jules Verne | Indian Ocean, Antarctic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1897 | Novel | An adventure story of looking for stranded survivors in Antarctica and a continuation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. | Mrs. Cashel Howey (Sampson Low) in 1898 | France | |
| The Sea Serpent (Les Histoires de Jean-Marie Cabidoulin) | Jules Verne | Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1901 | Novel | Story of a French whaling ship whose cooper is a believer in the existence of a giant sea serpent that drags ships to their doom. | Arco (London) in 1967 | France | |
| The Kip Brothers (Les Freres Kip) | Jules Verne | South Sea, Pacific Ocean | Sea, Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1902 | Novel | Castaways on an island are rescued, help quell mutiny and are then accused of murdering the ship’s captain. | Wesleyan University Press in 2007 | France | |
| Travel Scholarships (Bourses de voyage) | Jules Verne | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Pierre-Jules Hetzel | 1903 | Novel | Adventures of boys from an English school on a voyage to the Caribbean aboard a ship hijacked by pirates. | Teri J. Hernandes (by Wesleyan University Press) in 2013 | France | |
| The Lighthouse at the End of the World (Le Phare du bout du monde) | Jules Verne | Elgor Bay (Fictional), Atlantic Ocean, Le Maire Strait, Pacific Ocean | Bay, Strait, Ocean | Jules Hetzel | 1905 (posthumous) | Novel | Adventures involving pirates in a fictional Argentinian lighthouse near the Le Maire Strait. | William Butcher (University of Nebraska Press) in 2007 | France | |
| Toilers of the Sea (Les Travailleurs de la mer) | Victor Hugo | English Channel | Channel | Verboeckhoven et Cle | 1866 | Novel | Island life and attempts to salvage the wreckage of a ship including battle with an octopus. | 1866 in New York, Sir G Campbell (Ward Lock) in 1887 (UK) | France | |
| An Iceland Fisherman (Pecheur d’Islande) | Pierre Loti | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Calmann-Levy | 1886 | Novel | Story of Breton fishermen going to the Iceland cod fishing grounds. | Clara Cadiot in 1888 | France | |
| My Brother Yves (Mon Frere Yves) | Pierre Loti | Atlantic Ocean | Ocean | Calmann-Levy | 1883 | Novel | Description of the friendship between a French naval officer and a Breton sailor in their seafaring lives. | W. P. Baines | France | |
| Friday, or, The Other Island (Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique) | Michel Tournier | South Pacific Ocean | Ocean | Gallimard | 1967 | Novel | A retelling of Robinson Crusoe. | Collins in 1969 | France | |
| The Sea Wall (Un barrage contre le Pacifique) | Marguerite Duras | China Sea, Pacific Ocean | Sea, Ocean | Editions Gallimard (French), Pellegrini & Cudahy (US) | 1950 | Novel | Story of the destitute life of a widow living in the south of the French Indochina. | Herma Briffault in 1952 | France | |
| The Soul of Malaya | Henri Fauconnier | Indian Ocean (Coastal Plantation) | Ocean | 1927 | Novel | A classic colonial novel set near the coast on a rubber plantation. It details the complex relationship between a planter and the land, highlighting cultural clash and isolation. | France | |||
| Segu | Maryse Conde | Atlantic routes (Liverpool, Elmina, Charleston) | Ocean | Éditions Robert Laffont | 1984 | Novel | The major water body featured in Maryse Condé’s novel “Segu” is the Niger River, often referred to as Joliba by the local Bambara people. The Kingdom of Segu is situated on its banks in present-day Mali, and the river holds central importance for the setting, the community, and the novel’s themes. The arrival of outsiders—Europeans and Islamic missionaries—often occurs via the river, highlighting its role as a route for both commerce and cultural upheaval. | Segu: A Novel | Barbara Bray | France |
| L’Étranger | Albert Camus | Mediterranean Sea — Algiers beach (Marengo coastal area, French Algeria) | Sea | Vintage/Random House (Ward trans.); Hamish Hamilton (Gilbert trans.) | 1946 | Novel | Meursault, an emotionally detached pied-noir clerk in French Algeria, kills an unnamed Arab man on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers—a pivotal act that Camus frames as a collision between blinding Mediterranean heat, sensory overwhelm and moral indifference. The sea and beach function as the novel’s existential arena: Meursault’s swimming excursions, his courtship of Marie in the sea, and the fatal confrontation on the shoreline all take place against the luminous, indifferent Mediterranean. Camus explores his concept of the Absurd—the gap between humanity’s need for meaning and the universe’s silence—through a spare, sun-bleached prose style. One of the most translated novels of the 20th century; winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize context. | The Stranger (The Outsider) | Stuart Gilbert (1946); Matthew Ward (1989) | Algeria / France |
| La Peste | Albert Camus | Mediterranean Sea — port of Oran, Algerian coast | Sea | Hamish Hamilton (UK); Vintage (US) | 1948 | Novel | A mysterious plague seals off the Algerian port city of Oran on the Mediterranean coast, compelling its inhabitants to confront isolation, mortality, and the nature of solidarity. Dr. Bernard Rieux leads a medical campaign against the epidemic while Camus uses the quarantined port city—cut off from the sea and from the outside world—as an allegory for Nazi Occupation, totalitarianism, and the human condition. The Mediterranean itself, glimpsed but inaccessible through the quarantine, symbolizes freedom, life, and Camus’s Algerian ‘invincible summer.’ Written while Camus was separated from his Algerian home by wartime. One of the definitive 20th-century allegorical novels. | The Plague | Stuart Gilbert (1948); Robin Buss (2001) | Algeria / France |
| L’Exil et le Royaume | Albert Camus | Mediterranean Sea and Sahara — Algerian coastal and interior settings (Oran, Algiers, desert) | Sea | Knopf (US); Hamish Hamilton (UK) | 1958 | Short Stories | Six stories set primarily in Algeria, exploring themes of exile, alienation, and the search for community. ‘The Adulterous Woman’ follows a wife who experiences a nocturnal mystical epiphany gazing at the stars over the Saharan plateau from a fort near the sea. ‘The Guest’ unfolds on an isolated Algerian plateau between desert and Mediterranean. ‘The Sea Close By’ (later essay) amplifies the sea’s centrality in Camus’s imagination. Throughout the collection, the Algerian landscape—sun, sea, rock—serves as both geographical setting and existential metaphor for the condition of modern humanity caught between freedom and obligation. Published the same year Camus received the Nobel Prize. | Exile and the Kingdom | Justin O’Brien (1958); Carol Cosman (2007) | Algeria / France |
| Qui se souvient de la mer | Mohammed Dib | Mediterranean Sea (allegorical/atmospheric) | Sea | Three Continents Press, Washington D.C. | 1985 | Novel | Set in a decaying colonial Algerian city, this surrealist anti-war novel uses the Mediterranean Sea as a shifting allegorical force. The sea becomes ominously silent as a spectral second city materialises at night, representing the Algerian independence movement. Inspired by Picasso’s Guernica, Dib transforms historical trauma into mythic abstraction. The narrator and his wife navigate this dual reality—colonial present and insurgent future—while the sea, once thunderous, retreats to an eerie whisper. The novel is a landmark of Algerian Francophone literature, celebrated for its layered, oneiric imagery. Dib himself described its method as akin to abstract painting. Scholars have interpreted the sea’s disappearance as a metaphor for lost colonial innocence and the birth of Algerian national consciousness. | Who Remembers the Sea | Louis Tremaine | Algeria |
| Les Enfants du nouveau monde | Assia Djebar | Algerian coast / Mediterranean coastline (wartime) | Sea | CUNY Feminist Press, New York | 2005 | Novel | Set during the Algerian War of Independence, this ensemble novel follows women in a small coastal town navigating colonialism, resistance, and family separation. The Mediterranean coastal setting frames the women’s struggle and the arrival/departure of soldiers and colonisers. A key novel in understanding how Algerian women writers mapped the coastline as a gendered wartime zone. One of Djebar’s earliest works available in English translation. | The Children of the New World | Marjolijn Jager | Algeria |
| L’Amour, la fantasia | Assia Djebar | Mediterranean Sea / Algerian coastline (French naval bombardment 1830) | Sea | Quartet Books, London (1989); Heinemann (1993) | 1989 | Novel | The first volume of Djebar’s ‘Algerian Quartet’, it interweaves the author’s coming-of-age with Algeria’s history from the French naval bombardment of Algiers in 1830 through the War of Independence. The Mediterranean sea-landing of French forces is described through a palimpsest of colonial documents, military dispatches, and women’s oral testimonies. The coastal setting frames Algeria’s rupture and the violent inscription of French language upon Algerian identity. Djebar’s feminist-postcolonial vision uses the sea shore as the site where colonial violence first entered Algerian soil. Widely considered one of the most important Algerian novels of the 20th century. | Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade | Dorothy S. Blair | Algeria / France |
| L’Interdite | Malika Mokeddem | Mediterranean Sea coast — Oran / Ain Nekhla, western Algeria (coastal and near-coastal setting) | Sea | University of Nebraska Press (European Women Writers series) | 1998 | Novel | Dr. Sultana Medjahed returns from France to her native village of Ain Nekhla in western Algeria to care for a dying childhood friend. She finds a community under the grip of Islamist violence and patriarchal control. Having grown up as the ‘forbidden woman’—the girl who defied convention to educate herself—she embodies the Mediterranean nomadism Mokeddem advocates. The western Algerian coast, close to the Spanish Sea, frames Sultana’s memories of escape and her desperate desire to reclaim freedom. Mokeddem’s own biography mirrors Sultana’s: both trained as doctors in Oran before exile. A landmark of Algerian women’s writing. | The Forbidden Woman | K. Melissa Marcus | Algeria / France |
| Vaste est la prison | Assia Djebar | Mediterranean Sea (Algerian coast; Carthage; Mediterranean historical seascape) | Sea | Seven Stories Press, New York | 1999 | Novel | Third volume of Djebar’s ‘Algerian Quartet.’ The narrator Isma—a musicologist and filmmaker—interweaves her own modern Algerian woman’s life with the ancient history of the Berber Numidian kingdom and Carthage, a great Mediterranean civilization. The sea frames the narrative both historically (Carthaginian maritime power and destruction) and personally (exile, longing, the Mediterranean as the border between Algeria and France). Djebar uses the geography of the Algerian coast and the memory of Carthage to challenge French colonial historiography and recover pre-Arab, pre-Islamic North African identities. The Berber script Tifinagh, carved on a coastal inscription, becomes a symbol of surviving language under erasure. Winner of multiple awards; Djebar elected to the Académie Française in 2005. | So Vast the Prison | Betsy Wing | Algeria / France |
| Des rêves et des assassins | Malika Mokeddem | Mediterranean Sea — Oran coastal region and Algeria–France crossing | Sea | University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville | 2000 | Novel | A young Algerian woman, Kenza, travels to France to escape an arranged marriage and the stifling patriarchy of her Oran family. The Mediterranean crossing—literal and psychological—stands at the heart of the narrative as the border between constraint and liberation. Mokeddem draws on her own passage from a nomadic southern Algerian family to medical training in Oran and eventual exile in Montpellier to depict the costs and freedoms of transgressing social, cultural, and oceanic boundaries. The sea, glimpsed from Oran and finally crossed, becomes the decisive metaphor for the female protagonist’s self-determination. Translated into English as part of the European Women Writers series at University of Nebraska Press. | Of Dreams and Assassins | K. Melissa Marcus | Algeria / France |
| Harraga | Boualem Sansal | Mediterranean Sea (clandestine crossing / migration) | Sea | Bloomsbury, London | 2014 | Novel | A middle-aged Algerian woman, Lamia, searches Algiers for her younger brother Soufiane, who has vanished after joining the harragas — young Algerians who burn their identity papers and risk death crossing the Mediterranean clandestinely to reach Europe. Sansal uses Lamia’s obsessive investigation to critique the failures of the Algerian postcolonial state — unemployment, corruption, religious fundamentalism. The Mediterranean Sea is both a death-trap border and a promise of escape. One of the most politically engaged Algerian sea-crossing novels, it joins a rich body of harraga literature from the Maghreb. Sansal was later imprisoned in Algeria in 2024 for political reasons. | Harraga | Frank Wynne | Algeria |
| Traversées | Habib Tengour | Mediterranean Sea (poetic crossings / migration / exile) | Sea | Post Apollo Press | 2013 | Novel | A hybrid text of poetry and prose that uses the Mediterranean crossing as a central metaphor for Algerian exile, displacement, and cultural border crossing. Tengour, one of Algeria’s most significant experimental poets, frames the sea journey as a spiritual and political passage between the Maghreb and Europe. The collection is deeply engaged with the harraga phenomenon and the psychic weight of Mediterranean migration, examining what is burned and what survives in the crossing. Notably translated by Marilyn Hacker, a major American poet, underscoring the work’s literary prestige. | Crossings | Marilyn Hacker | Algeria / France |
| Les nouvelles aventures de Sindbad le marin | Salim Bachi | Mediterranean Sea / Algiers port / Rome / Damascus coastlines | Sea | Pushkin Press, London | 2013 | Novel | A modern Sinbad is reborn as a young Algerian man swept up in North African migration into Europe. Accompanied by a mongrel dog and a Senegalese friend named Robinson, he travels the Mediterranean world — from Algiers to Rome, Paris, and Damascus — across refugee camps and glittering Western cities. Bachi uses the One Thousand and One Nights framework to create an allegory for pre-Arab Spring Algeria, exploring immigration, beauty, war, and the seductive cruelty of the Western world. The sea is both the passage and the metaphor for an Algerian generation in restless, dangerous transit. Described by critics as a West-East mirror. | The New Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor | Sue Rose | Algeria / France |
| Ce que le jour doit à la nuit | Yasmina Khadra | Mediterranean Sea — Oran coastal region (Río Salado / Hennaya, western Algeria) | Sea | Nan A. Talese / Doubleday (US); William Heinemann (UK) | 2010 | Novel | Spanning the mid-twentieth century in the Oran province of coastal western Algeria, this semi-autobiographical novel follows Younes (Jonas), an Algerian boy raised by a pied-noir pharmacist uncle. Growing up in a town set between the Mediterranean and orange groves, Younes falls in love with Émilie, a French woman, and navigates a world divided by colonial hierarchies. The Mediterranean Sea and the sun-drenched Oranian coast are not merely backdrop but an expression of a vanishing shared Mediterranean world torn apart by decolonization. The novel became a major literary and cinematic event in France and Algeria. Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul. | What the Day Owes the Night | Frank Wynne | Algeria / France |
| L’équation africaine | Yasmina Khadra | Indian Ocean / Gulf of Aden / Somali piracy | Sea | Gallic Books, London | 2015 | Novel | A German doctor and his French companion are captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden / Indian Ocean. Khadra uses the piracy-plagued waters off East Africa to explore questions of humanitarian intervention, Africa’s post-colonial tragedies, and European complicity. The ocean is a space of lawlessness and geopolitical failure. One of the few Algerian novels explicitly set in the Indian Ocean rather than the Mediterranean, broadening the scope of Algerian oceanic fiction beyond its North African coastal context. | The African Equation | Howard Curtis | Algeria / France |
| مملكة الفراشة (Mamlakat al-Farāsha) | Waciny Laredj | Mediterranean / coastal Algeria | Sea | Katara Books (English, 2016) | 2016 | Novel | Translated into English by Katara Books in 2016, making it one of only a handful of Laredj’s Arabic works available in English. The novel engages with questions of Algerian identity, memory, and the cultural Mediterranean heritage. Details on maritime settings require further archival verification, but the work sits within Laredj’s consistent engagement with Mediterranean civilisational themes. | The Butterfly Kingdom | Unknown (Katara Books) | Algeria |
| Meursault, contre-enquête | Kamel Daoud | Mediterranean Sea / Algiers beach (Camus’s L’Étranger shoreline) | Sea | Other Press, New York | 2015 | Novel | A direct response to Albert Camus’s L’Étranger, this novel reimagines the story from the perspective of the unnamed Arab killed on the beach. Set along the Algiers Mediterranean shore, the sea is the scene of colonial violence — where the anonymous Algerian is shot by Meursault. Daoud’s counter-narrative reclaims the coastal setting as Algerian space, giving the Arab victim a name (Moussa) and a mourning family. The beach and the Mediterranean sun are reread as sites of colonial dehumanisation. An international literary sensation, winner of the Goncourt First Novel Prize. | The Meursault Investigation | John Cullen | Algeria |
| Les anges meurent de nos blessures | Yasmina Khadra | Mediterranean Sea — Oran coastal area (1930s Algeria) | Sea | Gallic Books, London | 2016 | Novel | Set in 1930s colonial Oran on Algeria’s Mediterranean coast, the novel follows Turambo, a young Arab boxer from a poor background who rises through the ranks of the boxing world under French colonialism. The port city of Oran, opening onto the Mediterranean, frames a society of profound inequality between pied-noir and Arab Algerians. Yasmina Khadra explores how ambition, love, and the violence of colonial society shape and destroy a man. The Mediterranean port setting provides both the physical backdrop and the symbolic threshold between the colonial world and the wider sea of possibility. Arablit.org lists it among key Algerian works translated into English. | The Angels Die | Howard Curtis | Algeria / France |
| Cours sur la rive sauvage (Run on the Wild Shore) | Mohammed Dib | Mediterranean coastal Algeria / wild shore | Sea | Éditions du Seuil, Paris | 1964 | Surrealist Fiction / Allegorical | A direct follow-up to Who Remembers the Sea, this novel uses the raw Algerian shoreline as an allegorical space for postcolonial Algeria. Untranslated into English despite being by one of Algeria’s foremost literary figures. Britannica explicitly lists it among Dib’s symbolic-allegorical Mediterranean sequence. | Algeria / France | ||
| N’zid (Arabic context — Algerian Arabic title) | N’zid | Mediterranean Sea (boat adrift / amnesia) | Sea | Éditions du Seuil, Paris | 2001 | Novel | N’zid’s title is Algerian Arabic/Derja for ‘I am born’ / ‘I continue’, embedding an indigenous linguistic identity into a French-language novel. Mokeddem belongs to a generation of Algerian Francophone writers who use Derja, Tamazight words, and Arabic registers as resistant strategies within French. The novel’s sea setting — a woman adrift on the Mediterranean — grounds it firmly in oceanic fiction. No English translation has been published despite significant scholarly attention. | Algeria / France | ||
| N’zid | N’zid | Mediterranean Sea (boat / sailing / amnesia) | Sea | Éditions du Seuil, Paris | 2001 | Novel | A woman named Nora awakens in a small boat adrift on the Mediterranean Sea with no memory. As she pieces together her identity — Algerian-born, targeted by terrorists, her lover disappeared — sailing and drawing become her tools for psychological reconstruction. N’zid means both ‘I am born’ and ‘I go on’ in Algerian Arabic, encapsulating the novel’s themes of rebirth and nomadic identity. Mokeddem uses the Mediterranean as a liminal zone between Algeria and France, between violence and freedom, past and future self. Scholars have analysed it through marine heterotopia and ecological approaches. The sea is described as a ‘no-place’ that is simultaneously liberating and threatening. | Algeria / France | ||
| Mes Hommes (My Men) — Algerian Arabic translation | رجالي (Rijālī) — Arabic self-translation | Mediterranean Sea | Sea | Bernard Grasset (French); al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi (Arabic) | 2005 | Novel | Like N’zid, the French original was translated by Mokeddem into Arabic as Al-Mutamarridah and published by the Arab Cultural Centre (al-Markaz al-Thaqafi al-Arabi). The Arabic version of this Mediterranean sea-fiction is held in North African archives. Neither the French nor the Arabic version has been translated into English. The Arabic edition brings the Mediterranean sea-narrative back into the Arabic reading world from which Mokeddem’s work was originally excluded by her choice of French. | Algeria / France | ||
| Mes hommes (My Men) | Mes hommes | Mediterranean Sea (border / desire / identity) | Sea | Bernard Grasset, Paris | 2005 | Novel | A semi-autobiographical fiction in which the Mediterranean Sea figures as the fundamental dividing line between Mokeddem’s two worlds: Algeria and France. Scholars have argued that in this work as in N’zid, Mokeddem treats the sea as simultaneously a real and imaginary border, a ‘no-place’ of tension between desert nomadism and coastal modernity. The male figures in the narrator’s life are examined through encounters shaped by the Mediterranean’s cultural crossings. The sea is described as an internal conflict allegory — victories over fear and social taboos. It forms part of Mokeddem’s larger literary project of using the desert and the sea as twin poles of Algerian-French identity. | Algeria / France | ||
| La Désirante | Malika Mokeddem | Mediterranean Sea (open sea; Algeria–European maritime axis) | Sea | Grasset, Paris | 2011 | Novel | A narrator searches for Léo, her lover who has disappeared at sea under calm weather, his sailboat found empty and adrift in the Gulf. The quest unfolds across the Mediterranean as she retraces his last voyage, encountering the conflicts and identities of Mediterranean coastal nations. Like Mokeddem’s earlier N’zid, the novel places an Algerian woman between the two shores of the Mediterranean, using the sea as a space of contested identity, desire, and irretrievable loss. Critics have noted its structural kinship with N’zid—both feature a boat, a Mediterranean setting, and an inner struggle between East and West—but La Désirante expands outward to address the broader political tragedies of the Mediterranean world. No English translation has been published. | Algeria / France | ||
| Sonata for the Andalusian / Lolita’s Fingers | Waciny Laredj (واسيني الأعرج) | Mediterranean coast / Algerian urban coast (Algiers) | Sea | Dar Al Adab, Beirut | 2012 | Novel | Set in Algiers, this novel uses the Algerian coastal capital as its urban maritime frame. Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF 2013). A French translation exists (Actes Sud/Sindbad) but no English translation. The Algiers waterfront and the Algerian Mediterranean urban experience are central to the novel’s political atmosphere. | Algeria / France | ||
| Talismano | Abdelwahab Meddeb 1946–2014 | Mediterranean city of Tunis; port quarter; sea as cultural and metaphysical horizon | Sea | Sindbad, Paris | 1979 | Novel | A hallucinatory, day-long journey through Tunis—real and imagined—by a Tunisian writer exiled in Paris. The narrator traverses the labyrinthine medina, the port quarter, and coastal zones, weaving together Islamic mysticism, French surrealism, Qur’anic citation, and postcolonial critique. The Mediterranean’s proximity permeates the novel: the city’s seafront history, its role as crossroads of civilisations, and the sea as cultural boundary between North Africa and Europe. Written in polyphonic French prose, considered one of the most ambitious novels in Francophone Tunisian literature. | Tunisia (Diaspora, France) | ||
| The Pillar of Salt (La Statue de sel) | Albert Memmi 1920–2020 | Mediterranean coastal Tunisia; Gulf of Tunis; Tunis port district; sea as colonial/cultural divide | Sea | Éditions Corréa, Paris | 1953 | Novel | Semi-autobiographical account of Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche growing up in French-colonial Tunis. The Mediterranean coast—particularly the port areas and coastal neighbourhoods—forms a persistent backdrop to the protagonist’s struggle to negotiate his layered identity as Jew, Arab, African, and colonial subject. The sea represents the ultimate barrier and possibility: Europe is ‘across the water.’ Memmi later wrote The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957), a landmark of post-colonial theory. One of the most internationally read Tunisian novels. | Tunisia (Jewish-Tunisian diaspora) | ||
| Welcome to Paradise (Cannibales) | Mahi Binebine | Strait of Gibraltar / Atlantic coast near Tangier | Sea | Fayard (Paris) | 1999 | Novel | Seven migrants—Moroccans, an Algerian, and two Malians—huddle on a Tangier beach awaiting a people-smuggler’s signal to board a fragile boat for Spain. Through alternating backstories, Binebine exposes the desperation, grinding poverty, and fatal allure of European fantasy that drives the harraga (border-burners). Tense and compassionate, the novella was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2004). The French original, Cannibales (Fayard, 1999), won the Prix de l’Amitié Franco-Arabe recognition for Binebine’s broader oeuvre. | Morocco | ||
| Leaving Tangier (Partir) | Tahar Ben Jelloun | Strait of Gibraltar / Mediterranean Sea off Tangier | Sea | Éditions Gallimard (Paris) | 2006 | Novel | In early-1990s Tangier, young Moroccans gather at a seafront café gazing at Spain’s glittering coast. Azel, educated but jobless, is beguiled by the sea between him and a better life. He eventually leaves via a morally compromising arrangement with a wealthy Spaniard, while his sister Kenza follows separately. Ben Jelloun dissects the psychic cost of crossing—prostitution, identity erosion, racism—with cold lucidity. The novel was originally published in French as Partir (Gallimard, 2006) and translated by Linda Coverdale (Penguin, 2009). Reviewed in Bookforum and World Literature Today. | Morocco / France | ||
| Sea Drinkers (in: Two Novellas by YAE) (Les Clandestins) | Youssouf Amine Elalamy (YAE) | Strait of Gibraltar / Atlantic coast near Kenitra | Sea | Self-published / Moroccan small press | 2001 | Novel | Sea Drinkers (originally Les Clandestins, 2001) depicts Moroccan harraga—the ‘burners’—who literally destroy their identity documents before attempting a clandestine sea crossing to Spain in small boats. Elalamy portrays the social conditions—shantytowns, rural exodus, unemployment—that propel young Moroccans to risk the Strait of Gibraltar. Winner of the Grand Atlas prize (2001) and Le Plaisir de Lire prize (2010). Published in English within Two Novellas by YAE alongside A Moroccan in New York (Lexington Books, 2008). Elalamy is founding president of PEN International Morocco. | Morocco |
