Phillip Kurata The Reluctant Agent

Annotation

Habib Ben Hamed, a young Tunisian intellectual, returns to Tunisia after living three years in France, where he had become embittered by French racism and remorseful for having abandoned Nouba, who was carrying his child at the time of his departure for France. He takes a job as a copy editor for a French language newspaper, manages to reconcile with Nouba, who had become a highly paid prostitute during his absence, and with great joy assumes his role of father to his three year old son. After Nouba retires from her "profession," Habib reluctantly accepts a job as an informant in the internal security apparatus, working under his older brother, Tarek, whom he loathes, in order to support his family. Tarek, engaged in a conspiracy to topple a government minister carrying out an economic collectivization campaign, orders Habib to spy on a leftist intellectual. Habib become friends with the intellectual and tries to protect him from being tortured by Tarek at a time of a crackdown on dissent.