Literature has always flirted with the border between reality and fiction. But when the reality invoked becomes a legal accusation, the controversy goes beyond literary circles to ignite public debate. The Oran court accepted two complaints filed against the writer Kamel Daoud and his wife, the psychiatrist Aïcha Dahdouh.
At the heart of the affair, the novel Houris, awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt 2024, with this question: did the work exploit, without consent, the tragic story of a survivor of a massacre perpetrated in the 1990s? Two complaints were filed against Kamel Daoud and his wife who treated Saâda Arbane, victim of terrorism.
The first complaint comes from Saâda Arbane who accuses them of having used her story without her consent, and another from the National Organization of Victims of Terrorism. Saâda Arbane, survivor of a massacre perpetrated by terrorists during the Black Decade, accuses Kamel Daoud of having drawn the raw material for his novel from his personal story.
Supported by her lawyer Fatima Benbraham, Arbane claims that her story – and her injuries – were revealed through the writer’s wife, who followed her in psychiatric consultation. “We paid the legal costs, which means that the public prosecutor’s office (of Oran) accepted the complaint,” Mr. Benbraham told the press last Thursday in Algiers, anticipating an upcoming summons.
The complaint refers in particular to article 46 of the National Reconciliation Law, which provides for up to five years in prison for “any person who, through his statements, writings or any other action, exploits the wounds of the tragedy national”.
According to the plaintiff, intimate details present in the book – a breathing cannula, scars left by an attempted throat slitting, painful memories linked to her family and even aspects of her professional life – can only come from her therapeutic confidences . For Saâda, who spoke in a television interview, this disclosure constitutes not only a flagrant violation of medical confidentiality, but also a betrayal of trust. The Oran public prosecutor’s office accepted the complaint, but uncertainty hovers over a possible appearance of the writer and his wife.
In the event of refusal to appear, a judgment in absentia could be pronounced. The case must, according to Mr. Benbraham, be handled in Algeria, by the Oran court. Me Benbraham states in this regard:
“It is the pilgrim who goes to Mecca, it is not Mecca which goes to the pilgrim. Daoud must come to answer for his actions in Oran. We are crossing swords with Daoud. Will he have the courage to come and deny what my client says? She addresses Daoud directly in these words: “You can return, you have no political inclination for which you have been prosecuted, your criminal record is clean, you are not politically repressed neither you nor your wife, so come and explain yourself here and then we’ll see. Between us, there will be the courtroom to bring us together without ever uniting.”
The lawyer also affirmed that she had asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the disappearance of her complainant’s medical file, adding that the penal code condemns the violation of professional secrecy. “My client showed her injuries and told her bruises to her doctor, psychiatrist and wife of Kamel Daoud, but she was trapped by her. This small device (cannula similar to the one described in Houris, editor’s note) through which she breathes. There are not 50,000 in Algeria, there is only one, and she is the one wearing it. What happened? Daoud’s wife took his secret, because she was his patient and gave the file to her husband, which constitutes a violation of medical confidentiality. She cannot deny this, because the medical certificates bear her name and she will have to explain herself to the investigating judge,” declares Me Benbraham, who emphasizes that one “cannot build one’s glory on the misfortune of the weak.” . For the lawyer, the Houris book is based on “deception”, specifying that the competition rules prohibit works based on identifiable real facts if this compromises individuals. “As soon as we touch on a person who we can identify, as is the case with my client, the novel cannot be eligible for the Goncourt Prize.”
“Kamel Daoud used the victim’s drama to obtain glory. This is a violation of my client’s honor and dignity.”
Faced with these accusations, Kamel Daoud has not yet responded publicly. Its publisher, Antoine Gallimard, however, defended itself by denouncing “violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature no one is unaware of”. “If Houris is inspired by tragic events that occurred in Algeria during the civil war of the 1990s, its plot, its characters and its heroine are purely fictional,” says Antoine Gallimard in a press release.
And to continue: “After the ban on the book and our publishing house at the Algiers Book Fair, it is the turn of his wife, who in no way sourced Houris’ writing, to be compromised in his professional integrity.”
The affair deeply divides the intellectual scene, already marked by Kamel Daoud’s often controversial positions on subjects such as religion, the place of women or Algerian identity. His supporters praise his literary audacity, while his detractors denounce what they perceive as an instrumentalization of Algerian dramas to attract a French readership.
