In 1936, a young dreamer named Edmond Charlot opened a modest bookshop in Algiers. Once the heart of Algerian cultural life, where Camus launched his first book and the Free French printed propaganda during the war, Charlot's beloved bookshop has been closed for decades, living on as a government lending library. Now it is to be shuttered forever. But as a young man named Ryad empties it of its books, he begins to understand that a bookshop can be much more than just a shop that sells books.
A Bookshop in Algiers charts the changing fortunes of Charlot's bookshop through the polit... continue
Imagine becoming accustomed to terror on a daily basis. Imagine finding it normal to betray your neighbor. Imagine your worst fears being replaced by complacency, your natural compassion by cold indifference. "In the Name of God illustrates the way evil can become a part of everyday life. And it is the story of Algeria today.
Il est le frère de "l'Arabe" tué par un certain Meursault dont le crime est relaté dans un célèbre roman du XXe siècle. Soixante-dix ans après les faits, Haroun redonne un nom et une histoire à Moussa, mort par hasard sur une plage d'Alger trop ensoleillée. Soir après soir, dans un bar d'Oran, le vieillard rumine sa solitude, sa colère contre les hommes qui ont tant besoin d'un dieu, son désarroi face à un pays qui l'a déçu. Etranger parmi les siens, rage et frustration inentamées, il voudrait clore cette histoire et mourir enfin. Hommage en forme de contrepoint rendu à L'Etranger d'Albert Cam... continue
Nedjma is a masterpiece of North African writing. Its intricate plot involves four men in love with the beautiful woman whose name serves as the title of the novel. Nedjma is the central figure of this disorienting novel, but more than the unfortunate wife of a man she does not love, more than the unwilling cause of rivalry among many suitors, Nedjma is the symbol of Algeria. Kateb has crafted a novel that is the saga of the founding ancestors of Algeria through the conquest of Numidia by the Romans, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and French colonial conquest. Nedjma is symbolic of the r... continue
"A writer who can understand man wherever he is."--The New York Times "Khadra's prose is gentle and precise."--The New Yorker As a child living in a ghetto, Turambo dreamt of a better future. When his family find a home in the city anything seems possible. Through a succession of menial jobs, the constants for Turambo are rage at the injustice surrounding him, and a reliable left hook. A boxing apprenticeship offers Turambo a choice. Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of the Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul. He is the author of more than twenty novels, including The Swallows of Kabul.
When Anna, an elderly Swiss woman, asks nine-year-old street urchin Jallal to accompany her to the mountains so she can locate the lost lover and pray over the graves of her murdered offspring, he agrees, and the two set off on a dangerous journey into the heart of Algeria. Original.
Gaining the ability to speak after swallowing a parakeet, the rabbi's cat uses his newfound talent to tell lies, the consequences of which lead to being banned from contact with the rabbi's daughter and an education in the Torah, despite his preference for the Kabbalah and his desire for a bar mitvah. Mature.
With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, Camus's masterpiece gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Behind the intrigue, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
As a young man Younes' life is irrevocably changed when he leaves his broken home for the vibrant, colourful and affluent European district of Rio Salado. Renamed Jonas, he begins a new life and forges a unique friendship with a group of boys, an enduring bond that nothing - not even the Algerian Revolt - will shake.