At the Algiers International Book Fair, the ban on Kamel Daoud’s novel Houris has sparked debates and regret among visitors, highlighting the ongoing tensions surrounding the portrayal of Algeria's civil war.
Visitors, authors, and publishers expressed disappointment at the absence of Houris, a novel by the Prix Goncourt-winning Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, following the ban imposed on his publisher, Gallimard, from presenting their works at the fair.
For its 27th edition, running since Wednesday until November 16, the fair welcomes over a thousand publishers representing 40 countries, including 290 Algerian publishers, showcasing over 300,000 books.
The ban on Gallimard’s participation was notified in early October, as Houris, a novel by Daoud on the violence of Algeria's “Black Decade” – the civil war that ravaged the country between 1992 and 2002 – was already seen as a strong contender for the Prix Goncourt.
The book could not be published in Algeria, where it falls under a law prohibiting any work addressing this bloody period, which claimed at least 200,000 lives, according to official figures. However, it is already widely circulating underground.
Encountered by AFP at the book fair, 64-year-old writer Samia Chabane said she is “against the banning of any book.” “I prefer that people make up their own minds, read the book for themselves,” said the author of a recent autobiography titled Stories of Algiers and Beyond, the Tale of a Free Woman.
For her, banning Houris in Algeria “feels like a book burning. It takes us back centuries. It doesn’t give people the tools to decide: is he right, is he wrong?”
Chabane, who says she has “read everything by Kamel Daoud, a great writer,” chose not to read Houris as she “doesn’t want to relive the horrors of those bloody years.”
“First Algerian in History”
Makdoud Oulaid, a 63-year-old surgeon, read the novel. He believes the Goncourt award for Daoud, often criticized in Algeria for his proximity to French President Emmanuel Macron, is more “linked to the political situation” than the quality of the work.
Relations between Paris and Algiers, on a rollercoaster since Algeria’s independence in 1962, are once again strained after France strengthened its support in late July for Morocco’s autonomy plan over Western Sahara, where Algeria supports the independence-seeking Polisario Front.
Alger viewed this French shift as a betrayal, immediately recalling its ambassador in Paris and announcing further retaliations.
Algerian publisher Sofiane Hadjadj, 51, founder of Barzakh, who published Daoud’s first novel The Meursault Investigation in Algeria in 2013, refrained from commenting on the ban of Houris.
“This is an international book fair organized by the Ministry of Culture. So we have to comply with certain rules. There are laws that govern book publishing. It’s entirely normal,” he told AFP.
Hassina Hadj Sahraoui, a 62-year-old publication director, regrets the book’s absence in Algeria, noting that “he’s the first Algerian in history” to receive the Goncourt, considered the most prestigious prize in French-language literature.
“We had Assia Djebar (a writer who passed away in 2015) who won numerous awards and was a member of the Académie Française, and now we have Kamel Daoud, who may one day follow in her footsteps,” she highlighted.
With AFP
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