Conversations with the absurd - Fiction in Algeria

My phone rings. It's Kahina. She's supposed to be out with her boyfriend at this hour. It's their second outing together in two-years. Relationships here are often mostly distance relationships, conducted over the phone between lovers who practically live next door. Kahina is turning out to be like Amine, a once very close friend who used to call me from toilet cubicles in hotels, restaurants, coffee-shops, to give me the details of the girls to whom he'd just been introduced. He'd decided to get married and had embarked on a bride search with his dad as mediator. He'd initially set his heart on his cousin but eventually had a change of heart. He couldn't tell his dad about what he called 'a detail'. "I really like her but uncle abused her when she was 12 and her mum's been hiding it from family members who all seem to know anyhow".

- Hi Kahina, are you in the loo?
- what? no, am in bed, am soooooooo.....
She lets out a cry. One of those long expiration that comes from the very center of her belly, from the little tender spot that connects up the heart and the ego. She sobs:
- he ....cancelled ... our meet-up, he ....doesn't love .....me, he doesn't .....care about.... me, i've been so... looking forward.... to this for...for... weeks, she cries.
- we all keep telling you he's an ass, take time to get over him, go out with friends, do stuff, we'll go out for ice-cream...
- from now on, am dating a European, she sniffs.
- to go and live abroad?
- because they're romantic, they take their girlfriends out all the time and offer them flowers.
- they do?
- I've seen it in movies...
- it's fiction Kahina, there's no...
- fiction happens in real life!
- ....you've got a point...

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Books on the 'Hirak' - fiction, poetry, and non-fiction

(photo credit: Yacine Bouaziz ) Every Friday, for the past 38 weeks*, men and women with their children have been peacefully demonstrating in Algeria, reclaiming public space and demanding a complete overhaul of the political landscape. In the country, these demonstrations are described as part of a larger whole: the " hirak " (less often harak ), 'the movement'. It was of course only a matter of time before the hirak became the main subject in books. So far, non-fiction leads with analyses and commentaries of this nationwide movement, written in Arabic and French, by single authors or collectives, published as early on as May 2019 (demonstrations began on 16 February 2019). The hirak has also crossed into poetry and fiction. Khaled Ben Salah's poetry collection " diary of an African man who wears a floral shirt and smokes L&M's in the time of the revolution " was published by El Mutawassit editions in October (see an excerpt...

Moufdi Zakaria - The Algerian Ilyad

I am over the moon to have found a PDF version of the original Algerian Ilyad by the great Algerian war poet Moufdi Zakaria. As it is the original version, it is in Arabic HERE (thanks to archive.org, a fantastic e-resource for old books, you should check it out). You can access the book in other formats too HERE . The Algerian Iliad - إلياذة الجزائـر - l' Iliade algé rienne is a 1,000 line poem retracing Algeria's history in great historical details. Throughout, Cheikh Zakaria recounts all the names that have shapped the Algeria's history. He goes through all the regions' history and their greatest most emblematic figures. This poem is so valuable and beautiful. It should be on the curriculum of any Arabic and history cursus in Algeria. Perhaps it is and/or you know this poem? Who is Cheikh Moufdi Zakaria? Well, on 5th of July, three days from now, Algeria will celebrate 50 years of independence. A tremendous poem wa...

"Kan darbe yaadatani, isa gara fuula dura itti yaaddu" (Oromo proverb)

"By remembering the past, the future is remembered". These notes are taken from Mengesha Rikitu's research on "Oromo Folk Tales for a new generation" by (see also his "Oromo Proverbs" and "Oromo Grammar"). Some proverbs are folk tales are worth the detour: 1) Oromo Proverb – Harreen yeroo alaaktu malee, yeroo dhuudhuuftu hin'beektu "The Donkey doesn't know that it is farting again and again when it is braying." (ie some people concentrating on their own verbosity are unaware of what is going on behind them) You can tell that dhuudhuuftu is the farting can't you, am betting on the sound that word makes. Oromifa is one of the five most widely spoken (Afroasiatic) languages in Africa. Its importance lies in the numbers of its speakers and in its geographical extent. The 'official' numbers point to 30 million Oromo speakers (but there has not been to this day a complete or reliable census). The majority...

Machaho Tellem Chaho

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