When she was six years old, Saâda Arbane, living in an isolated village, nestled between the wilayas of Tiaret and Djelfa, saw her entire family massacred by an armed group during the dark decade which disfigured Algeria in the 1990s. The only survivor of this carnage, she survived terrible injuries, an attempted slitting of her throat, and lost her voice forever. An unimaginable ordeal that she carried on her shoulders for nearly 25 years, in silence and in pain.
Today, this same Saâda Arbane carries both the suffering of her personal traumas and a muted anger towards those who, according to her, exploited her story without her consent. It was in almost inaudible French that Saâda shared her story last Friday on the One TV channel. And his testimony could well scratch the literary and media edifice around the work of the famous writer Kamel Daoud, winner of the Goncourt Prize for his novel Houris.
The link between the tragic story of Saâda and “Houris” seems to be established in a surprising way. According to Saâda, Kamel Daoud’s novel, which the writer himself has always presented as a work of fiction, would be nothing other than a faithful, and not consented, representation of his own experience.
According to his statements, this book draws on the most intimate elements of his life: the scar on his neck, the physical after-effects of a failed throat slitting, the absence of voice, the trauma of a family massacre, but also personal details like her journey to the hospital, her care in France, or her relationship with her mother and the difficulties she encountered to survive after the dark decade.
She accuses the writer Kamel Daoud, who has never publicly mentioned Saâda, of having drawn on his confidences, shared with his wife, a psychologist, during therapy sessions. Saâda, who began consulting the writer’s wife in 2015, claims that it was these interviews, where she opened her heart to a psychologist in an attempt to exorcise her demons, which were used to feed “Houris”. She evokes a flagrant violation of professional secrecy and a betrayal of her trust.
According to her, Kamel Daoud’s wife would have exposed her story without her consent, in violation of basic rules of ethics. Saâda, in her story, recounts how she was stunned to discover, thanks to a friend in France, that her story was now told in a best-selling book.
She notably evokes meetings with the Daouds, where the writer himself suggested transcribing his tragedy into a work. But Saâda, faithful to his desire to protect his privacy, would always have refused. “When I started consulting, in 2015, it was not yet Ms. Daoud (…). But, three years ago, I was invited by Ms. Daoud to have coffee at their home, in the Hasnaoui city. Kamel Daoud then asked me if it was possible to tell my story in a novel, I refused. Later, his wife told me that he was writing a book and I told her that I didn’t want it to be about my story. She told me, ”Not at all… I’m here to protect you,” she confided to journalist Younès Sabeur Chérif.
The revelation was all the more surprising for Saâda as she saw people talking about Houris as a book telling its own story, in a surprisingly precise way. The novel, which tells the story of Aube, a mute young woman bearing on her body the scars of the period of terrorism, seems to align perfectly with the events that Saâda experienced: a breathing tube attached to her neck, a body marked by violence, and the quest to find his voice.
Saâda gives other details which would have been exploited by the writer: the conflict with her mother, the profile of the adoptive mother, her plan to have an abortion, the meaning of her tattoos, the hairdressing and beauty salon… The extent of what she calls “betrayal”, according to Saâda Arbane, does not stop at the simple appropriation of her story.
She accuses Kamel Daoud’s wife of violating professional secrecy by disclosing personal information, in particular medical reports and documents relating to her health. These supporting documents, which she kept as proof of her traumas, would be the very source of the writer’s inspiration. During a recent interaction with Kamel Daoud’s wife, the latter would have denied outright any direct inspiration in the writing of Houris, before giving him a copy of the book, signed, accompanied by a – flattering – dedication from the writer: “Our country has often been saved by courageous women, and you are one of them.”
Medical confidentiality not respected?
This was obviously not enough to appease Saâda. On the contrary, she says she is deeply shocked to learn that a probable film adaptation of Houris is in the works, and that the writer and his entourage are considering financial benefits. “His wife told me that there would be a film adapted from the story, and that Kamel Daoud could contact me to write the screenplay. I told her: ”good idea”, and she replied that I could buy an apartment in Spain thanks to that,” relates the interviewee.
For Saâda, this project aimed only to silence her and make her an accomplice to a story that she had never agreed to share. Saâda Arbane considers that it is a novel which dispossesses her of her story. The discovery that her experience had become an object of fiction revived wounds in her that she thought had healed. For her, this affair is much more than a question of honor; it is a profound violation of his rights to dignity and protection of his privacy.
During her speech on television, Saâda expressed the pain of having seen her story unpacked without her consent. “I was even called to ask me how much I had been paid to do the book… and it was a shock to find all these details, I was never able to finish the book,” underlines -her, evoking sleepless nights, painful memories and a feeling of betrayal which plunged her into a state of intense mental suffering. She also underlined the importance of ethics and professional conduct in the field of health, specifying that professional secrecy, whether medical or psychological, must be respected without exception.
From a legal point of view, this case raises many questions. Saâda Arbane’s accusation is based on violation of professional secrecy, an offense which could lead to prosecution of Kamel Daoud’s wife, if the accusations were proven. As for the writer, although he wrote a novel whose similarities with the reality of Saâda are striking, it would be difficult to initiate proceedings against Kamel Daoud himself, as long as the direct link between his book and the Saâda’s story is not explicit and she is not mentioned by name.
But Saâda sees things differently. For her, this is not simply a literary dispute. It is a question of justice, respect for intimacy and private life. She considers that her story was used without her consent and that the writer exploited a personal tragedy to make a work of fiction sold to the general public, without ever worrying about the consequences for her. This case raises a fundamental question: how far can we go in exploiting an individual’s story in the name of literature and where do the boundaries between fiction and fiction end – or should they? reality ?
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