Did Kamel Daoud yes or no reproduce in his novel “Houris” the true story of an Algerian woman who survived the decade of terrorism in Algeria? In any case, the controversy does not fade away.
While the person concerned remains silent, the famous French publishing house Gallimard reacted this Monday, November 18 to the controversy surrounding the novel by the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, “Houris”, winner of the 2024 Goncourt Prize. The publisher denounces “defamatory campaigns” against the Franco-Algerian novelist.
Kamel Daoud, Algerian writer naturalized French since 2020, won the prestigious Goncourt Prize on November 4 for his latest novel, Houris, recounting a drama dating back to the decade of terrorism in Algeria, in the 1990s. The plot of the novel is supposed to be a fiction.
On November 15, a broadcast from the Algerian channel One TV had the effect of a bomb. A woman came to testify that Kamel Daoud told her story in his novel, which is true, without her consent.
Aube, the central character of Houris, supposedly fictional, is in fact called Saada Arbane, according to this testimony. She survived an attempted slitting of her throat by a terrorist group in the 1990s, in the Tiaret region.
On camera, she accused Daoud of having revealed her personal story even though she had expressly asked her not to do so. According to her, in 2015 she told her story to the wife of Kamel Daoud, psychiatrist.
Kamel Daoud defended by his publisher Gallimard
“Yes 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 », defended Antoine Gallimard, publisher of Kamel Daoud, in a press release released this Monday, November 18.
While defending his writer, the director of the French publishing house does not respond in detail to Saada Arbane's accusations, but she accused the Algerian power of being behind the accusations against the winner of the 2024 Goncourt Prize.
“Since the publication of his novel, Kamel Daoud has been the subject of violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature no one is unaware of,” continues the director of the publishing house.
Gallimard accuses media close to the regime
« After the ban on the book and our publishing house at the Algiers book fair, it is the turn of his wife, who did not in any way source the writing of Houristo be affected in his professional integrity », added Gallimard.
According to Saada Arbane, the act which almost cost him his life and which left him with serious after-effects occurred when his family was decimated by an armed group in a small village of Tiaret. She was six years old. And this is already the plot of the novel.
She assured that she recognized her personal case in the novel through several details (the scar, the breathing tube attached to her neck, the tattoos, the abortion, the hair salon, etc.).
According to her, the Daoud couple insisted that her tragic story be the subject of a novel, but she categorically refused.
The writer who is originally from Mostaganem has not yet reacted to these accusations. Just like the Goncourt Academy.
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