The Influence Peddlers

The eagerly awaited English translation of Kaddours award-winning novel of clashing cultures during the French colonial years Gather together French colonialists, young nationalists eager for independence, and local Maghreb leaders in a small North African city of the 1920s. Bring a collection of brash American filmmakers and celebrities into the picture. Dangerous cultural collisions are the inevitable result in Hdi Kaddours best-selling novel of French colonial rule and its persisting legacy of human chaos and cultural tragedy. In this commanding novel, the author plumbs the contradictions of colonialism and the impact on individual lives. With insight, humor, and a profound sense of irony he introduces Les PrpondrantsThe Preponderants, an unofficial group of peddlers of influence who operate at every level of colonial society. American Hollywood values, Islamic and secular politics, French mannersnone of them escapes Kaddours skewering wit. Filled with rich irony and wonderful characters, this is a novel that grapples forcefully with colonial relations in the Arabic, North African, and French worlds, while also journeying into the simmering Europe and United States of the Roaring Twenties.