‘The End of the Third World: The Patriarchy Virus’: Anouar Rahmani releases new novel

The End of the Third World: The Patriarchy Virus

End of the Third World examines the foundations of patriarchal systems and questions the global order through the lens of a worldwide epidemic known as the Patriarchy Virus. The virus is said to attack women’s wombs, triggering panic across the globe and pushing governments toward permanent lockdowns, persecution, and the targeting of LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, minorities, and other marginalized communities. As fear spreads, the figure of the “woman” is transformed into a universal scapegoat. The term no longer refers only to those born female or those who transition into women; it expands to include LGBTQ+ people, dark-skinned communities, immigrants, refugees, minorities, and anyone placed at the bottom of social hierarchies.

Yet despite the global chaos unfolding outside, the novel approaches the epidemic mostly through news reports and distant accounts. The real story is far more intimate: it follows Elizabeth, a woman in her forties who suffers from a severe skin sensitivity to sunlight, and her supposedly “progressive” and “religious” husband, Andrew. Their relationship begins to unravel when Andrew learns that Elizabeth is pregnant. Having long rejected the idea of fatherhood, he reacts with rage and hostility. What begins as a marital conflict over pregnancy and abortion soon evolves into a philosophical struggle about freedom, parenthood, bodily autonomy, and existence itself.

Everything changes when Elizabeth discovers that Andrew murdered his father as a child and hid his severed head inside a flowerpot. Suddenly, she finds herself trapped between a hypocritical and increasingly violent husband, the buried head of his father, and another head growing inside her own body. The conflict consumes her to such an extent that the Patriarchy Virus itself becomes almost irrelevant. The small patriarchal system suffocating her inside the house proves far more terrifying than the one ravaging the outside world. For a woman whose life is already constrained by her inability to face sunlight, what happens beneath her own roof becomes far more dangerous than anything occurring beyond it.

Attempting to survive and regain her husband’s trust, Elizabeth decides to rebury his father’s skull inside the flowerpot and water it as a gesture of reconciliation. But something strange begins to happen. A gigantic tree emerges from the buried head, which has somehow transformed into a seed. As the conflict intensifies, the tree grows relentlessly, invading the house and gradually infiltrating the minds of those who live there. It produces fruits with human faces that do nothing but moan and sigh. The tree feeds on Andrew’s vanity and desires, while simultaneously exploiting Elizabeth’s maternal instincts. Unconsciously, she begins breastfeeding these fruits before eventually consuming them herself.

Other stories branch out and intertwine with the central narrative. Through Elizabeth’s memoirs and reflections emerge tales of patriarchal oppression and transformation: a man whose head turns into a breast, a woman who was once a fish during the Falklands War, an Irish man whose father convinced him that sunlight was a murderous monster, and many others. Together, these stories form a fragmented universe exploring power, identity, trauma, and resistance.

The novel was originally conceived and partially written in Arabic in Algeria beginning in 2019. It underwent substantial transformation after the COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence of authoritarian tendencies across many parts of the world. Later, while pursuing a Master’s degree in Applied Translation at Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Professor Kenya Dworkin, Rahmani translated the novel into English and wrote several additional sections in English, integrating them into the manuscript.

More than anything, End of the Third World is a novel of questions. It raises questions that belong to the age we are living through- questions about power, fear, identity, freedom, and the recurring return of patriarchal structures in new forms.

You can read the full novel here.

Anouar Rahmani

Rahmani’s work includes novels, essays, and literary-philosophical texts that challenge moral orthodoxies and religious extremism, while centring marginalised bodies and silenced identities. Beyond literature, he has been actively engaged in advocacy for freedom of expression, freedom of belief, and the rights of minorities, including LGBTQI+ individuals and communities in the Arab world.

Rahmani has also drafted an alternative constitutional project for Algeria, as well as a new model for the Algerian Family Code, as part of broader intellectual efforts to rethink the country’s political and legal foundations and embed them in principles of equality and individual rights and freedoms.

During the Algerian popular movement of 2019, Rahmani actively participated in debates on democratic transition and the legacy of authoritarianism. He also drew attention to the unresolved disappearance of thousands of people during the widespread violence of the 1990s, highlighting issues of memory, justice, and democratic accountability.

As a result of his literary and intellectual work and activism in Algeria, Rahmani faced sustained persecution, harassment, and threats.

Rahmani’s work has been covered by global media outlets such as Le Monde, El País, Al Jazeera, International Business Times, TÊTU, and L’Humanité.

In the United States, Rahmani has continued his literary and academic work, giving readings, delivering talks, and participating in numerous events organised by universities and cultural institutions. He has collaborated with institutions such as Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Ithaca College, the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Slippery Rock University, as well as with secondary schools and cultural centres.