Nobel Prize winners and many writers call for the release of Boualem Sansal

Nobel Prize winners in literature as well as several writers have called for the “immediate release” of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, in an article published on the website of the weekly Le Point.

“Let us demand the immediate release of Boualem Sansal and all writers imprisoned for their ideas”they wrote in this text initiated by his compatriot Kamel Daoud, Prix Goncourt 2024 and columnist at Le Point. “We cannot remain silent. Freedom, the right to culture and our lives, writers targeted by this terror, are at stake.”they also added.

The arrest of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, 75, on Saturday November 16, upon his arrival in Algiers from France, continues to cause debate, particularly in the ranks of the French political and intellectual class. The official APS agency confirmed his arrest on November 22 without providing further details.

According to Le Monde, the Algerian authorities may have taken badly Sansal’s statements to the French media Frontières, according to which the country’s territory was truncated under French colonization for the benefit of Algeria. Editions Gallimard, publisher of the literary work of Boualem Sansal since the publication of The sbarbarians swear twenty-five years ago, express their deep concern following the writer’s arrest and call for his immediate release.

The official Algerian press agency APS criticized, Friday November 22, France for taking “the defense of a Holocaust denier who calls into question the existence, independence, history, sovereignty and borders of Algeria”qualifying M. Sansal de “useful puppet”.

According to observers, the arrest of Boualem Sansal and the prosecution of Kamel Daoud appear to be an attempt by the Algerian regime to muzzle free and critical voices within the intelligentsia. This repression seems to be part of a control strategy aimed at neutralizing any protest against the authoritarian regime in place in Algiers.

>> Also read: Kamel Daoud, 2024 Goncourt Prize, accused of having exploited the trauma of an Algerian survivor