The court jester (muharrij al-malik) or buffoon (bahlawān) is a fool who speaks the truth and a witty entertainer who becomes intimate with the king. This proverbial character, often based on historical figures, is found also in the Arabic literary heritage and popular culture. Taken out of its time, it provides an unusual perspective on history in contemporary Arabic fiction. Focusing on this character, this paper aims at investigating the aesthetic innovations of recent historical novels by looking at the re-elaboration of historical sources, the porous boundaries between fact and fiction, and the interplay of cross-cultural tropes and local culture. To this aim, this paper will compare two historical novels that reimagine history to construct a complex memory, while experimenting with the narrative structures. In Riḥlāt al-ṭurshajī al-ḥalwajī (1991 [1981/83]) by the Egyptian Khayrī Shalabī (1938-2011), the protagonist is a time-traveller who visits the Fatimid and Mamluk eras searching for genuine Egyptianness. He plays several comical roles, including the buffoon at the court of the Mamluk Sultan. Defying the literary conventions of the travelogue and classical historiography, this novel is a humorous attempt to address the anxieties about the post-Nasserist Egyptian society. Moving to the Moroccan literary scene, Qiṭṭ abyaḍ jamīl yasīru maʻī (2011) by Yūsuf Fādil (b. 1949) stages the conflict between the father, a court jester fired by King Ḥassan, and the son, a comedian disillusioned by Marxism. Fādil’s latest novels reconstruct the recent history of the country in dialogue with testimonial fiction.