The life of Hanafi is so rich in events that it is impossible to summarize it by a few pages. Therefore, there is no question of presenting a bulky summary here to you, because his biography is the subject of a book which will speak about all that marked his life and not only the artistic side.

Born under the sun of Tunisia, in a garden of flowers, fruit trees and vegetables, Hanafi saw of all the colors during his childhood and his life. He knew the war and peace, the disease and good health, poverty and the richness, the failure and the success, the unhappy love affair and the love passion, and many other ingredients which belong to this mysterious life. He came from an average family where painting and music are very significant things. His mother and two of his four sisters have talent for music, his father for do-it-yourself and all the ten children for painting. Today, Hanafi counts among the members of his family and his close relations, a brother, a sister, two cousins and a cousin painters.

His birthplace Menzel-Bourguiba, built by the French colonizers was called at the time of his childhood Ferryville and "Le Petit Paris" (Small Paris). It was a charming and accessible city where Christians, Moslems and Jews co-existed peacefully. However, the occasional repression of the Tunisian freedom fighters by the French soldiers made life unbearable. His father, a former non-violent militant for the independence of Tunisia, was imprisoned and tortured with some recoveries by the occupying forces. Irony of the fate! Hanafi owes his life to the French Military Hospital. Indeed, at five years age, he had a benign infection in the throat, and as his parents were afraid of the reprisals by French soldiers because of the political activities of his father, they left him at home hoping that it would cure naturally. The infection worsened so much so that he almost was killed. At this time, they tried urgently their luck with the military Hospital. He was saved in extremis, since according to the doctors, if he had arrived five minutes later, he would not have survived. Of this painful experiment, Hanafi learned a good lesson in life, that "one never should generalize, there is good people and the bad people everywhere".

In addition, his mother had also been to prison, but not for the same reasons as her husband. Indeed, in the forties, she was a militant fighter for the emancipation of women and, by love for the man of her life, she courageously refused to a organized marriage with an Arab who bathed in money, and that cost her a few months in prison. At the time, equality between the genders did not exist and a woman needed a lot of courage to dare defend her dignity. Finally, she had profited from the whole affair since she got to marry the man of her choice.

With no further details, Hanafi is the fruit of a courageous and examplary couple in love. And, starting from the experience of his father and his mother, he cultivated a respect and admiration for women, a devotion to freedom, peace, democracy and love. Moreover, he was married with a Swedish woman for fifteen years with respect, love, passion and happiness and he never had problems of culture or religion. From this union three children were born, as of their youth have a talent for painting. And when he divorced, it was done with friendliness and he remained an excellent friend with his ex-wife.

Although he was born painter and lives for his art since 1974, Hanafi was interested in almost everything there is but he never gave up painting. He has completed over 10 000 works since his youth of our days, mainly paintings, but also, sculptures, mosaics, engravings, as well the noble metal jewels. It should be noted that all of his works belong to private and public collectors. And, even as his passion for the visual arts has no limit, he has a parallel a great passion, for music, theatre, writing, humour, politics, science, inventions, business, natural medicine, sports, fashion, languages and the art of cooking.

Besides his formation in painting, sculpture, mosaic, engraving and jewelery, he has a diploma of teaching in production mechanics, a certificate in business management, data processing and electronics he also has a university diploma in electricity and electric engineering, and that is only to mention the most significant ones.

It is important to specify that they are not only formations. Indeed, parallel to his artistic activities, Hanafi has worked in mechanics, electronics, data processing, engineering, edition, administration and he brewed businesses successfully. Moreover, he speaks five languages, that is to say French, Arabic, English, Swedish and German. And it's not all, in the art of cooking, he has created a hundred recepies based on the kitchen and the pastry making of Tunisia, France, Italy and Sweden, and these proved to be useful to his close friends. He even hopes to one day publish a cooking book!