Ali al-Douagi’s “Nice”

<p class="ql-align-justify">This article examines the modern Tunisian writer Ali al-Douagi’s (also al-Du‘aji, 1909–1949) travelogue, titled <em>Jawla Bayna Ḥanāt al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ</em> [Journeys Through the Mediterranean Taverns], with a special focus on “Nice,” his eponymously titled chapter and account of the French city of Nice. Al-Douagi embarked on a tour of the Mediterranean region between 1933 and 1935. Through a sea voyaging tourism company, he explored the cities and ports on the Mediterranean shores: from Tunis to Nice in France, through Italy and Greece, then to Turkey (now Türkiye) and Syria, to Alexandra in Egypt, and back to Tunis. In addition to critically engaging Douja Mamelouk’s article, titled “Alī al-Du‘ājī and <em>al-‘Ālam al-Adabī</em>” [The Literary World: A Voice of the Tunisian Avant-Garde Under Colonial Rule (1930–1936)], I discuss the form and content of “Nice,” focusing on the intersection of the themes of travel, East meets West, humor, gender, race, culture, and implicitly, colonization. Firstly, I argue that al-Douagi not only binarizes between the West/colonizer (or Global North) and the East/colonized (or Global South), but also privileges his own implied (Arabic/Islamic) culture over that of the European colonizers, which he mocks and denigrates, albeit innocuously. Secondly, contrary to both al-Douagi’s (in the introductory chapter to the travelogue) and Mamelouk’s position, I contend that the author is rather didactic in his travel accounts.</p>