Out of time/place: the court jester in Arabic historical fiction

The court jester (muharrij al-malik) or buffoon (bahlawān) is regarded as a fool who speaks the truth and a witty entertainer who becomes intimate with the king. This proverbial character, based on historical figures, is found also in the Arabic heritage and popular culture. Taken out of its time, it may complicate the representation of history in modern Arabic fiction. This paper aims at investigating the depiction of the court jester among the narrative innovations of recent historical novels: it will consider the re-elaboration of historical sources, the porous boundaries between fact and fiction, the interplay of cross-cultural tropes and local culture, as well as the definition of the self/community. To this aim, this paper will compare two historical novels which defy the conventions of this sub-genre. The first one is Riḥlāt al-ṭurshajī al-ḥalwajī (1991 [1981/83]) by theEgyptian Khayrī Shalabī (1938-2011). In his time-travels, the protagonist visits the Fatimid and Mamluk eras searching for the genuine Egyptianness. He plays several comical roles, including the buffoon at the court of the Mamluk Sultan. The second novel is Qiṭṭ abyaḍ jamīl yasīru maʻī (2011) by the Moroccan Yūsuf Fādil (b. 1949), which stages the conflict between the father, a court jester fired by King Ḥassan, and the son, a comedian disillusioned by Marxism. Fādil’s latest novels reconstruct the recent history of Morocco in dialogue with testimonial fiction.