Oroppa
Pluim).
You might think that, according to official maps, no twenty-first arrondissement exists in Paris. Yet, this underground sanctuary — a place where everything that cannot be endured aboveground finds its refuge — first heard of by Oroppa protagonist Hind during a Berlin night, lures the intellectual castaways. It’s « a constantly regrouping system of cellars, parks, attics, tunnels, bridges, car parks, bars, street corners, basements and back alleys where the happy seeker might end up, if only briefly, escaping the predictable, fated course of daily life. »
After sensational novel Oroppa, (Pluim, 2025) written by debut author Safae el Khannoussi, won two major literary prizes in the Netherlands, you will soon be able to read a translation in your own mother tongue. In this lavish, generous novel, characters, images, thoughts, stories, and pregnant lines tumble over one another.
« Oroppa » is the Europe of those who do not traditionally « belong. » And somewhere within that Oroppa lies the twenty-first arrondissement.