Literature | Melikah lion heart

She comes from Chicoutimi. She’s a Saguenay as we like them. Bright, with convictions, things to say and passion. A great talent, as my mother told Alma. Her name could have been Marie Tremblay and somehow we would have expected that. But her name is Mélikah Abdelmoumen. A real Abdelmoumen from Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, born in 1972 and raised in a PQ family. It can be, yes.

Mélikah Abdelmoumen published in 1999 Assault flesh, his first novel. She is only 27 years old and, soon, destiny places in her path a Frenchman with whom she falls in love and whom she decides to follow to France. A detour in life that will have a profound impact on his existence. The young woman arrives in a country different from the one she idealized since childhood, a country shaken by a social and migratory crisis.

In Lyon, her name and her distinctive physique place her on the wrong side of history. Even if she does not have the culture and does not speak the language, for France, Mélikah Abdelmoumen is Arab. Nobody hires him, nobody wants to publish his books.

She saw her second shock in the slums where she accompanied a friend who had collected clothes to give to the Roma who live there crowded together in basic dwellings. She sees children there without winter boots, without food, without the minimum. All this in opulent Lyon. She will return there every week without asking questions, to help even if it does not have a significant impact as the needs are great.

The Roma are wary of her like the other gadjis. She gives her time without counting, she gives cigarettes, a little money. Never enough for needs, of course. It will take him time to convince the Roma to trust him, because they are wary of foreigners, even benefactors. But for her, France is a love story where she has the impression of not being able to please the other. Exhausted, she returns home, but not before promising the Roma to write their story to raise money and continue to help them. No doubt they didn't believe her.

On her return, she resumed her literary activity and Twelve years in France appears in 2018. As promised, she pays the income from the book to the Roma families with whom she was involved in Lyon.

To tell the truth, I don't know many writers who are willing to give up their copyright in this way. Even modest, they are the result of what is most precious to them, their work.

Mélikah Abdelmoumen works as an editor, she directs the magazine Quebec lettersshe writes. But she notes that Quebec has also changed. She is no longer perceived as a writer from Saguenay, but as an author of diversity. In 2022, she published the much-noticed essay by Mémoire d’encrier. Baldwin, Styron et moiwhere she addresses this delicate question of identity which, after having overwhelmed her in France, now pursues her even at home.

How can we advocate diversity if we don't have the right to speak on behalf of others? she asks herself. And how can she herself speak in the name of the Arabs when she does not carry their culture? It's done with nuance and intelligence. The book that has not finished its journey will appear in English in the spring.

After this long detour, last fall, Mélikah Abdelmoumen returned to her first love, the novel, with Small Towna thriller far from the fashionable romans à clef. Star journalist Simon James, thirsty for social justice, is found dead in the poor neighborhood where he was born. His adopted sister, Mia, broken by life and society, carries the story. She tries to shed light on the murder.

This fragile and strong character, with his humanity on edge, advances the story in the middle of a dark dystopian universe where the elites monopolize the wealth and where the masses live on the margins. In suburbs not far from the slums of Lyon. A class society not so different from today's Quebec either. The author points the finger at the complacent media, the complicit columnists who modulate public opinion for the benefit of their masters.

In this world, good and evil clash once again. Wanting to get through it, wanting to transcend the circumstances that life has thrown your way is rarely enough. Exit the American dream in Little Town. It might be cliché, but it's not. The humanity that inhabits the novel gives it life and the magic happens. A great talent, as they would say to Alma.