I ordered this book on the epic of the migration of the Bani Hilal, in one of its Tunisian versions. The author interviewed one of the last oral reciters of this grand epic, an old Tunisian herder, and translated it into French. I The epic of the Bani Hilal is the Arabs’ equivalent to Homer’s Iliad. It is based off a historical event: the mass migration of the Bedouin tribe of Bani Hilal out of Arabia and into North Africa over the course of the eleventh century CE. Of course, like any epic, it consists of several cycles, each one with its heroes, vilains, love stories, betrayals, feats of courage, etc.