Machaho Tellem Chaho

The exhibition Manufactured Response to Absence has just opened at the Modern Arts Museum of Algiers. Here are a few photos of the artwork displayed. The best piece of them all is by far the inside of MAMA itself.     OLIVE CELEBRATION LIGHTBULB  Modern Arts Museum of Algiers

I was intending on briefly presenting the two volume comics Waratha (the Heirs) but I've changed my mind.  Instead, it is the preface that caught my attention. Waratha was published in 2012, the year commemorating Algeria's 50 years of independence, and this subject matter is the focus of this collective album.  There are five works per volume. Etienne Schreder prefaces that there is a majority of women cartoonists in this new group and asks: "Is it a sign of our times or a sign that women's interest lies more in stories that draw on roots and origins ?   It is true to say that the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Algeria's independence woke up in them stories anchored in their family memory, or in their own experience. Men, true to themselves, trusted more in their imagination ."  [my bold] According to Schreder, himself a cartoonist, women cartoonists are anchored in the womb, while men, unbridled, less womby , give fuller flow to t...

FIBDA opened on Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday 9 October was its first full day.  I'm so glad I was able to make it as I walk away from it with exactly what I was looking for, Algerian comics in Derja among which Algerian Love , and a better idea of where Algerian mangas and the Algerian language in writing are heading. The below are works that caught my attention and made it in print and on FIBDA's stands. There was an overwhelming amount of French language comics, a minority of modern standard Arabic, and a few but solid comics in Algerian Derja ( ok, I've only seen one, with another not yet published in full but whose plates were exhibited, yet there could have been 10 more I didn't spot, right ).  There is at least one other Algerian Derja comic book in the mix, to be published by next year, written by Nawel Louerrad  (who also writes in Arabic). She was present to sign and promote her French album . Z-Link editions promotes Algerian m...

I’ve been party to several Twitter and email exchanges around the French author Camus (yes, French) in relation to Algeria over the last week or so. This speedily composed but typical sentence suffers from at least three identity problems. One of the main questions in the French media is: Camus is a controversial figure in Algeria. Wait, that’s not a question mais on s’en fiche, French media agencies don’t ask questions, they’ve already got the answers t’as compris. France is apparently celebrating the man’s centenary, while Algeria has just celebrated 50 years of its independence, who is mocking who. It goes without saying that by ‘France is celebrating’ we are talking about a small wannabe elitist group (elitist is like punk in France, it’s been long dead), unrepresentative of discussions around the table in flat-screen-TV obsessed homes, ZEP schools, monolingual universities, and unemployment agencies around the country. But should Camus be dropped in the onion soup, it would not...

I am writing from Algiers where I landed three months ago for the sole purpose of bouncing elsewhere (haven’t been East or West yet, far South and Kabylie only for now).   I’ve been in Algeria for close to five months today I’ve realised, first six weeks then this uninterrupted stretch, moving from friends' extra fresh to family's extra fresh to hotels' empty dar .   I can’t say I’ve had a preference for a place, everywhere I’ve been to I’ve really liked. I’m not bored, nothing’s caused me anger nor dejection (not even cyber cafés’ illusive internet connections, power cuts and being force fed). Complete strangers have been as kind, generous and funny as family, and have become good friends. Friends and family/s have fibbed the same fibs. They’ve also warned me when they fib so that I won’t fall into fib-traps that no one lays anyway. I’ve known love and heart break already (to the left, to the left). No guy’s been sleazy (apart from the dude am meeting tomorrow)...

"Most things get done tomorrow but not." ~ me. I’ve been  here  for about two months now. My status so far… the pace of my walk is still too fast, my Derja is abysmally poor, my Kabyle equates to French with hand signs and I can’t decode men/women interactions. I have noticed that I use the future tense a great deal ( rah  this,  rah  that) while the Derja speakers I’ve met so far don’t use it that much, even little. I’m of course thus far translating my English and French thoughts into a broken tongue and this is where my future tense-abuse stems from.  In English and French, we use the future tense quite frequently I now realise. Instead of the future it is the active participle that  I’m hearing  being used , or the simple present, in situations where my corrupted ears expect a   sawfa   equivalent (the active participle corresponds or is similar to the English present continuous I’m ….-ing ).  If I were ...

{(under expansion)} Although titled "Top 10", this is now a Top 11 and expanding. These detective novels are by far the better crafted crime novels I've come across. Check out the whole list here however, they're all worth a read! 1- Maurice Attia - Alger la noire (2012, Barzakh)  [Alger, the black city] Available with Barzakh here  and with Actes Sud here .   2- Amel Bouchareb Sakarat Nedjma (the flutters of the star) (Chihab eds, 2015) See here for a review . 3- Amara Lakhous  Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, (transl. 2008) Dispute Over a Very Italian Piglet,  Europa Eds, 2014 4- Rahima Karim - Le meurtre de Soma Zaïd (2002, MARSA eds) (The murder of Soma Zaïd) 5- Salim Aïssa  Adel s'emmele ... Alger, ENAL, 1988. Mimouna, Alger, Laphomic, 1987.  6- Abahri Larbi  Banderilles et muleta. Alger, SNED, 1981.   ...