The winner of the Goncourt Prize testifies to his love for France. Monday, November 4, the jury awarded the prize to Franco-Algerian Kamel Daoud for his novel Houris on the “black decade” in Algeria, reports BFMTV. “The Goncourt Academy crowns a book where lyricism competes with tragedy, and which gives voice to the suffering linked to a dark period in Algeria, that of women in particular”declared Philippe Claudel, the president of the Académie Goncourt. “This novel shows how literature, in its high freedom of auscultation of reality, its emotional density, traces alongside the historical story of a people, another path of memory”he added.
After the announcement of the result, Kamel Daoud paid a poignant tribute to France, “a country that protects writers” and which allows him to write freely. “I know we like to do 'French bashing' but for me, this country is a welcoming country for writers, for writing and all that which comes from elsewhere”underlined the winner. “It’s your dream, paid for by your years of life. To my deceased father. To my mother who is still alive, but who no longer remembers anything. No words exist to say the true thank you”wrote the author on X in tribute to his parents.
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Kamel Daoud's novel recounts the story of a young woman who was mute after an Islamist slit her throat on December 31, 1999. Furthermore, “Houris”, the title of his book, refers to young girls promised to paradise. in the Muslim faith. The work is banned in Algeria because it deals with the civil war which took place between 1992 and 2002. This price “has meaning for my parents. For my editors. For this country that welcomes me. It’s a wonderful thing that’s happening.”he reacted. Kamel Daoud has previously published two other novels and received the Landerneau Readers' Prize in October.
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