Nobel Prize in Literature and international and French authors mobilize

Several media reported the arrest, Saturday, November 16, at Algiers airport, of the 75-year-old author, who recently obtained French nationality. Political leaders have expressed their concern.

Mobilization for Boualem Sansal. The Franco-Algerian writer was arrested on Saturday November 16 at Algiers airport, coming from France, several French media reported last week. The reasons for his arrest, confirmed by the Algerian government agency APS, are not known. According to the weekly Marianneil “no longer gave any news to his loved ones since his arrival in Algiers”. The 75-year-old author, who obtained French nationality this year, is known for his freedom of thought and speech, whether against Algerian power or religious fundamentalism, since he launched into literature in 1999.

A week later, Saturday November 23, several writers published an article on the weekly's website The Point. They sign a text written in the first person by the 2024 Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud. “This tragic news [l’arrestation] is a reflection of an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society, he writes. From now on, everything is possible: life imprisonment for a text message, prison for a sigh of annoyance. » Among the signatories, Nobel Prize winners Annie Ernaux, Jean-Marie Le Clezio, Orhan Pamuk and Wole Soyinka, as well as Salman Rushdie, Peter Sloterdijk, Andreï Kourkov, Roberto Saviano, Giuliano da Empoli, Erri de Luca and Alaa el Aswany . They asked “the immediate release of Boualem Sansal and all writers imprisoned for their ideas”.

The French President of the Republic and several French political leaders, especially belonging to the right and the center-right, also expressed their concern and support for the writer. “State services are mobilized to clarify his situation”it was specified at the Elysée, adding that “the President of the Republic expresses his unwavering attachment to the freedom of a great writer and intellectual”.

“He embodies everything we cherish: the call to reason, freedom and humanism against censorship, corruption and Islamism”wrote former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on “French and European authorities to obtain precise information and ensure that he can move freely and return to France whenever he wishes”. Among the other political figures to have spoken: Laurent Wauquiez and Marine Le Pen

A tense diplomatic context

Boualem Sansal enjoyed success from the start with The Barbarian Oatha novel recounting the rise in power of fundamentalists who contributed to plunging his country into a civil war that left at least 200,000 dead between 1992 and 2002. His books, published in France, are sold freely in Algeria but the author is controversial there, particularly since a visit to Israel in 2014.

Kamel Daoud, winner of the Goncourt this year for Hourisis himself at the heart of a controversy in Algeria, accused by a victim of the civil war of having exploited his story. Of “violent defamatory campaigns orchestrated by certain media close to a regime whose nature no one is ignorant of”denounced Monday the director of his publishing house, Gallimard, who was banned from participating in the Algiers International Book Fair.

These events take place in a tense diplomatic context between France and Algeria, after Paris' support for the Moroccan autonomy plan for the disputed territory of Western Sahara at the end of July. Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is de facto controlled mainly by Morocco. But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, who are demanding a self-determination referendum and are supported by Algiers.