The Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud won, at the age of 54, the Goncourt Prize for his novel Hourisin which he recounts the black decade, the civil war in Algeria, which opposed, between 1992 and 2002, the Algerian government and Islamist groups. He retraces this period through the story of a young woman who was mute after an Islamist slit her throat on December 31, 1999. However, his book was banned in Algeria, and is not translated into Arabic. As the author wrote in his novel, Algerian law prohibits any mention in a book of the bloody events of the “black decade”. “The National Charter for Peace and Reconciliation of 2005 determines a total legal lock in relation to the black decade”he explained in an interview with JDD in September.
In the novel, Kamel Daoud particularly highlighted women, particularly victims during the Algerian civil war: “Who is the being that the Islamist hates the most? It is the woman in her body, in her being, in her voice, in her sensuality. » In our columns, he warned against the rise of Islamism across the world: “It is a Western intellectual illusion which consists of granting different nationalities to Islamism”he indicated. And to add: “ We are not talking about national phenomena, those who went to fight in Syria were of all nationalities. We think in terms of nations, flags and borders – not them. »
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Faced with this rise of Islamism, “the issue is cultural” explained the former journalist: “The answer is access to art, access to books”what he calls “ editorial trenches ». For him, “if Islamism is advancing in the Arab world, it is because it controls the media and the printing press”but also “literature for young people”. “Islamists are made in the cradle, through children's stories, through school. All fascisms begin by attacking books, writers, translators”analyzed Kamel Daoud.
