Finzione, caffé e filosofia nel romanzo Baba Sartr di ‘Ali Badr

This paper will focus on the novel Baba Sartre (Papa Sartre) published by the Iraqi author ‘Ali Badr in 2001. The novel depicts the Baghdadi society between the ’50 and the ’60 till the end of the century. The central issues of the narration are the questions of identity, knowledge and power. In this novel, a writer is in charge for writing the biography of pseudo-philosopher ‘Abd al-Rahman Shawqat. After having studies philosophy in France, Shawqat returns to Iraq and decides to launch an existentialist movement trying to imitate his hero, Jean-Paul Sartre. During the investigation to re-construct the life of “The Sartre of Baghdad” and his mysterious death, the biographer runs into a generation of intellectuals whose know-ledge of the existentialist philosophy is almost limited. They consider that the main func-tion of existentialism is to legitimize a practice of life, according to Sartre’s famous statement “ma philosophie est une philosophie de l’existence”, rather than contribute to a serious development of Arab thought. This novel contains a fierce critique of Iraqi society, and ‘Ali Badr uses satire large on a large scale to make fun of the contradictions of the cultural Arab milieu. The novel, emphasizing complicity between literature and philosophy, gives us the op-portunity to re-read the literary production of an entire generation of Arab in-tellectuals deeply influenced by French existentialism.