Boualem Sansal, a Franco-Algerian writer who lives in Algeria, was arrested on November 16 at Algiers airport. His relatives have not heard from him since that date.
Published on 24/11/2024 10:34
Reading time: 1min
“The literary world is mobilizing, but this mobilization is symbolic because we have no power”regrets Sunday, November 24 on franceinfo the writer Philippe Claudel, president of the Goncourt Academy, while we have still had no news of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal since November 16 and his arrival in Algiers.
Philipe Claudel judge “very disturbing the silence” around the disappearance of the writer known for his writings critical of the power in place in Algeria. The Algerian government agency APS confirmed on Friday on its website the “arrest” of the writer, without giving further details. Philippe Claudel sees this arrest as a gesture “authoritarians” which thus demonstrates, according to him, “the real weakness” of Algeria.
“If a writer can no longer even criticize the history of his country and the political positions of his country, we really are in a dictatorship.”
Philippe Claudelat franceinfo
The president of the Goncourt Academy presents the Franco-Algerian writer as a “free spirit” who has “always denounced the flaws of Algerian society in the 1990s and the flaws of Islamism” and who “took a position regarding Western Sahara”.
Philippe Claudel also considers that Boualem Sansal is “a collateral victim” of the discrediting campaign carried out, according to him, by the Algerian authorities against another Franco-Algerian writer, Kamel Daoud. “I can't help but think that the award of the Goncourt to Kamel Daoud for his novel Houris [Gallimard] also playedhe emphasizes.
Philippe Claudel supports the proposal made Friday on franceinfo by academician Jean-Christophe Rufin to bring Boualem Sansal into the French Academy via a “emergency election”. Philippe Claudel judges this proposal “formidable” and therefore supports “this initiative”.
