Is the Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, winner of the 2024 Goncourt Prize for “Houris”, complicit in a violation of medical confidentiality? Did he appropriate the story of a Civil War miracle? Because the plot that he tells in his novel would be that of Saâda Arbane, an Algerian who now lives near Oran.
In any case, this is what the thirty-year-old said in an interview given to the private Algerian channel One TV a few days after the Goncourt award. She explains that the psychiatrist who followed her is Kamel Daoud’s wife and, with her husband, they asked her three years ago to be able to tell her story in a novel and that she refused several times. .
VideoThe writer Kamel Daoud wins the 2024 Goncourt Prize for his novel “Houris”
His lawyer, Me Fatima Benbraham, announced that two complaints were filed in Algeria against the author and his wife, accusing them of having revealed and used the story of a patient for “Houris”. The first was filed in the name of the National Organization of Victims of Terrorism,” and “the second in the name of the victim,” she said, assuring that their filing dated back to August, “a few days after the publication of the book”, and well before the award of the Prix Goncourt to the novel at the beginning of November. “We didn’t want to talk about it, so that it wouldn’t be said that we wanted to disrupt the author’s nomination for the prize,” she told AFP.
“I know this is a very delicate and controversial subject”
On Monday, Kamel Daoud’s publisher, Gallimard, reacted by denouncing the “violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature no one is ignorant of.” The author made no statement, and Gallimard did not respond to our requests. For the publishing house, the stakes are enormous: “Houris” has been printed in more than 300,000 copies and since Goncourt, it is number 1 in sales, with more than 50,000 copies sold this week.
As for the Goncourt Academy, its president Philippe Claudel told us that he had “no statement to make, not having the means to investigate this matter”. Questioned by “Le Parisien”, Sabeur Younes, the Algerian journalist who interviewed Saâda Arbane, assures us that he has not suffered any pressure. “I tried to do my job as best as possible. I know this is a very delicate and controversial subject. I value my integrity. Contrary to what Gallimard says, One TV is not a pro-power channel because otherwise, we would not have invited Kamel Daoud in 2018.”
“She felt betrayed in her innermost being”
Explains to him that he was contacted by the young woman, because they had “contacts in common”. “I then did my job, I checked what she was saying, and I was able to see tangible evidence like the text message exchanges between her and the author’s wife or the novel Houriswhich he dedicated to him. » According to him, it was by receiving this book with Kamel Daoud’s note that she wanted to speak.
The journalist says he met “a woman in a state of shock by this story”. She told him “that she had read a third of the novel and not been able to continue, because she felt deeply betrayed. She read things that only her psychiatrist knew…”. Today, the journalist continues, “she wants the truth to be reestablished. »
