Boualem Sansal, Paladin of Liberty

Since his arrival in Algiers last Saturday, Boualem Sansal has disappeared. However, all eyes are on the same side. Towards an Algerian power which, faithful to its habits, likes dirty tricks, excels in the unsaid, advances masked. Towards an Algerian power for which this 75-year-old writer, with his brilliant, fierce and uncompromising pen, embodies everything he is not: courage, sincerity, panache.

Where he is, would Boualem Sansal be hostage to the bad mood shown in recent months by Algiers? Against Emmanuel Macron, who has just reconnected with Rabat and recognized the Moroccan nature of Western Sahara? Against the Goncourt prize which crowned Kamel Daoud, another talent slayer of the regime? Against Paris, which granted French nationality at the start of the year to the two novelists, Sansal and Daoud? These episodes are experienced as “humiliations” at the presidential palace of el-Mouradia. We don’t…