Ahe leaders of Algeria, the novelist, winner of the prestigious 2024 Goncourt Prize for his novel Hourisaccuses them of silencing their opponents through intimidation.
Houris cannot be published in Algeria, because it falls under a law prohibiting any work on the black decade between 1992 and 2002, which left at least 200,000 dead, according to official figures.
“Lies are necessary to stay in Algeria”
Kamel Daoud, Franco-Algerian writer, in an interview with Monde
“Recently, I read something by Albert Camus: ‘Exile is necessary for the truth’. We can reverse the formula for Algeria: lying is necessary to stay there”, he said daily The World.
He cites the example of an unnamed writer who gave up joining the movement in support of Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian novelist in detention in Algeria since November for endangering state security.
“I can’t judge others, their choices. I remember this writer who wanted to sign the petition and who called me back saying: ‘I can’t, my wife is leaving for Algiers in two hours.’ I understand”, explained Kamel Daoud.
“The diet is tough. You sign, you pay it immediately. There is fear, therefore”, he added.
The writer’s other targets are “first the Islamists, who are in the process of privatizing cultural spaces in Algeria, publishing houses, bookstores, schools. These Islamists are delighted to see a writer in prison”, according to Daoud.
Finally, there is the “left-wing press which cannot see us beyond the role imposed on us, that of ideological adjuvants”.
“In other words, either we speak to this press according to its own expectations, neutralizing our own convictions, or we do not have the right to speak”, explains Kamel Daoud.
The author of the novel Houris has been writing a column in the weekly since 2014 The Pointwhere he attacks the left as regularly as the Islamists, which causes him to be attacked in return.
“I am criticized for not being the good Arab, the one who is in permanent victimhood and decoloniality”, he lamented to the Monde.
