The novel is an induction of constructed reality in a failing place. It sources real people as its characters, yielding 'The Perfumed Garden', a narrative that challenges what can and cannot materialize in that Arab world.This clip is part of the 'Casting for a Novel' series where real people are invited to cast to become characters in a novel. **For English subtitles, activate the Captions by clicking 'CC' 'The Perfumed Garden' is an autobiography of another Arab world. It is a weave of reality and induced reality to produce a work of literature in English that lends itself to Arabic surrealism. Induced Reality being the process I am exploring that is similar to a Happening, which produces performances, events and situations as part of writing the novel. These activities are meant to make ideas tangible, hence removing them from the realm of fiction into the reality of the readers. The aim is to introduce the real as a main player of fiction. The characters and events are based on real people, and if these characters and events don't already exist in reality, they are induced via multimedia sub-products. The narrative of 'The Perfumed Garden' feeds from the tension between the human-scale perception of contemporary Arabia and its canons of identity. The novel, with its title derived from Cheikh Nafzaoui's 16th century Manual of Arabian Erotology, is an act of intercourse with a place that has forgotten its sex. Through its narrative, it uncovers a series of characters within a re-edited map of the Arab world, one that lacks its current geopolitical borders, attempting to breed an alternative sense of identity. Read the first chapter of 'The Perfumed Garden' here: http://goo.gl/SEjQxj

• published: 09 Feb 2014
• views: 4