Machaho Tellem Chaho

Yacine and Adel are two old friends on their way to work. Yacine, the dreamer of the two, works for a museum in Algiers about to get closed because of lack of funds. He is on his way to a difficult meeting with the museum director, Mr Yousfi, an old and gentle man desperately trying to save the museum. Adel, always cautious and down to earth, works in a bank and promises to try and think of something that might raise some funds. The two friends meet after work to go and grab a bite to eat but Yacine receives a phonecall from Yousfi who asks him to come urgently. The Minister of Culture's decision regarding the museum's affairs is about to fall: it will be closed and not even a private venture can save it. Yacine and Adel make their way to the museum, where Yacine goes off to meet with Yousfi, while Adel waits for them and wanders off in the various private rooms usually closed to public view. He enters a fully furnished medieval style bedroom, hangs his coat on a...

The 20 th edition of Algiers’ International Book Fair is about to open its doors for a week between 29 October to 7 November. During a press conference held on 25 October to help publicise the event - and which was live-tweeted - #SILA2015’s Commissioner, M. Hamidou Messaoudi, communicated some important, and some strange, information on the event’s scope and structure. Here are some press conference highlights.   Numbers The guest of honour this year is France, who is said to have invited a number of high flying speakers, and has organised a special series of activities to mark its very own special edition. 53 countries in all will participate to the event, and 25 thousand titles will be made available. Priority has been given to new releases we are told, and to university and scientific publications. The Commissioner highlighted that, this year, 54% of exhibitors are Algerians, possibly in comparison to a majority of foreigners in previous years o...

Adel s'emm ê le [Adel gets entangled] is Algerian novelist Salim Aissa’s second detective novel. It was published in 1988 by ENAL editions. His first was Mimouna , published the year before in 1987. I've found no information about who Salim Aissa is, and found no other books published by him after these two, and what a shame that is. Adel s'emmele is one of the best Algerian detective novels of the 80s I've read. By that I mean it is (finally) a detective story written for adults, it doesn't have the (excruciating) excess of wisecracks, no adjectival abusem its narrative is tight and flows (great editing for once). And crime is not glazed over. Adel is a bullheaded police inspector who works in Algiers, a chaotic capital in which crime abounds. There, further injustice is created daily by a lethargic public system in which all involved are corrupted. In an environment that is becoming increasingly aggressive and violent, Adel and his colleagues, Che...

Several lit prizes have begun to (re)emerge over the last two to three years in Algeria. Here are three new prizes I've come across looking to recompense and support our very own Algerian lit.   The Assia Djebbar Prize for the Best Novel This year will mark the first award of the Assia Djebbar prize for the Best Novel . The prize was created by ANEP [the National House for Publishing and Publicity] in March 2015, in memory of Assia Djebbar and her legacy to literature - the prolific Algerian author and member of the prestigious French Academy passed away on 6 February 2015. The AD prize will reward an Algerian novel written in Arabic, French or Tamazight. The AD award will be given during SILA , Algiers' International Bookfair. SILA opens its massive doors every year for a week. This year it will run from 29 October to 7 November. 2015 marks its 20th edition. The Best Fantastique genre Short Story The Prize for the Best Fantastique genre ...

Do you know Algerian novelist Chawki Amari? Have you heard of his latest novel The Dead Donkey (L'ane mort)? Here's my review of this novel, his latest, and a general overview of Amari's work on ArabLit : New Algerian Fiction: Up a Mountain with a Donkey in the Trunk .

Les pirates du d ésert ( Pirates of the desert ) is a detective novel, written by Algerian author Zehira Houfani. Houfani was born in 1952 in Kabylie (M'kira). She moved to Canada in 1994 and continues writing. Zehira Houfani published her first novel Le Portrait du disparu [Portrait of a missing person] in 1984, with ENAL eds. Then came Les pirates du desert (ENAL, 1986), followed by L’Incomprise [A woman misunderstood] in 1989 (ENAL). Since then, Houfani seems to have only published non-fiction. Her latest book Jenan, la condamnée d’Al-Mansour [Jenan, the convict of Al-Mansour] was published in 2008 and recounts the bombings she experienced while working in Iraq for an NGO. Les pirates du désert (Pirates of the desert) is a light, and entertaining detective story set in Tamanrasset where Omrane, the political representative of the Algerian government there, is trying his utmost to stop crime in Tam, but to no avail. A gang has rapidly grown from small time...