P A R A D I S E

A NEW NOVEL BY

ELWYN ( WYNN ) CHAMBERLAIN

WITH

SIDIQI AL WAFI

*

 

           

SYNOPSIS

 

PARADISE TELLS THE STORY OF SOME OF THE DEFINING MOMENTS IN THE LIVES OF THE ANTI-HERO, RADOUAN-JANNAT AL ULD BILLAH, HIS THREE WIVES AND LIFE LONG BELOVED FRIEND MOHKTAR. RADOUAN'S FAMILY HAS LIVED IN THE MARRAKECH MEDINA SINCE THE MID-SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE BOOK OPENS AS HE IS CELEBRATING HIS THIRTY-SIXTH BIRTHDAY WITH HIS FRIEND A GERMAN BARONESS WHOM HE HAS BEEN SEEING SINCE HE WAS FIFTEEN. AFTER RADOUAN's DEATH THE FOLLOWING OBITUARY WILL APPEAR ON THE SITES OF THE MAJOR NEWS SERVICES OF THE WORLD.

 

Paris, Reuters - October 16, 2048

 

Today in Paris, the great house on the Isle-St-Louis was draped in red and green, its lights dimmed in mourning for its mysterious occupant, Radouan-Jannat ibn Ibrahim ibn Abbas ibn Hassan al Uld Billah, who died here last night at the age of eighty-seven. A renowned philanthropist, collector and one of the world’s richest men, he is probably best remembered for his oft quoted remark, ‘Life is God’s Joke.’
Although he had properties around the world and traveled between them, aside from his immediate family and employees the eccentric recluse, who favored disguises when he ventured out, had not been seen publicly for over thirty years. Billah’s foundation As -Sabil,(the Path, the Way) until recently presided over by the late jurist Prospero Manolo Serfati, was established in the year 2000 and has since become one of the largest charitable organizations in the world. A pioneer in strategies to empower the rural poor, it incurred the wrath of the Moroccan Establishment, was dismissed by International Development Agencies and bitterly opposed by business and government bureaucracies of the time.
Born in Marrakech, in 1962, into an ancient tribe of mounted Arab fighters, by the time he was eighteen Billah had become a rising star on the International polo scene and, over the next decade, notorious for a series of scandalous affairs with members of the International Set, including the Baroness Mina Von Schleebruck, doyenne of Marrakech society for forty years, the late British socialite Antonia Howard, and French film star Delphine Bene. It was during this same period, under circumstances shrouded in mystery, that he acquired a very large fortune and gave three quarters of it to the philanthropic organization he founded.
Billah, an outspoken critic of Christian, Moslem and Jewish Fundamentalism, incurred the wrath of various Ayatollahs, Imams, Muftis, and Rabbis; enraged the Vatican, and was the subject of a Fatwa issued in Qom which denounced him as a Heretic and called for his death. During the same period, roughly the first two decades of this century, he was hounded by the international press which demonized him variously as a Neo-Marxist, a Socialist, Luddite, Regresso, Terrorist, Anti-Globalizationist, Radical Environmentalist, Social Terrorist, Womanizer, Gigolo, Libertine, Playboy, Toy Boy, Male Chauvinist Pig, Dervish, and Sufi. In his native country, Morocco, however, he came to be worshipped by thousands as a Holy man of extraordinary power.
Disillusioned by the life his wealth had brought him, however, and stunned by the ridicule which his charitable foundation first received, by 2010 Billah had left Morocco and taken up residence in France in the Hotel Particular on the Isle-St-Louis where he died last night.
By 2012 he had migrated to Argentina where for the next three decades he spent most of his time on a large property in the Eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains raising his family and carrying out large environmental projects. Upon the death there of his first wife in 2038, however, he returned to Paris and took up residence again on the Isle-St-Louis.
Although increasingly reclusive, he was an astute investor, and amassed a personal fortune estimated at over two hundred billion pounds. As Chairman of his Foundation, he oversaw its emergence as one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world with assets of over a trillion.
He is survived by his second and third wives, Delphine and Hafida, their children and grand children. Memorial services will be held in Marrakech on October the Seventeenth. Burial will take place the following afternoon at the village of R’hamna, a few kilometers west of Marrakech.

 

PARADISE EXPLORES THE DRAMATIC, SOMETIMES DANGEROUS, INTERACTION OF MODERNISM WITH THE CULTURE OF MOROCCO. IT IS A TALE OF JEALOUSY< LOVE< HATE AND DECEIT; OF HUMAN FRAILTY, AND COMPASSION AS ARABS, BERBERS AND SEPHARDIC JEWS INTERACT INTERACT WITH THE FOREIGN RESIDENTS OF THOUSAND YEAR OLD MARRAKECH -AN UNEXPECTEDLY COMPLICATED CITY WHERE A THIN VENEER OF OCCIDENTAL VALUES HIDES A FAR DEEPER SUBSTRATUM OF ANCIENT TRADITIONS AND BELIEFS. A PLACE OF CONTRASTS WHERE, THOUGH TINGED WITH AN EVER PRESENT VEIL OF HYPOCRISY AND CYNICISM ITS RESIDENTS ARE SURPRISINGLY HOPEFUL AND COSMOPOLITAN AS THEY SURRENDER TO THE WILL OF ALLAH.