Machaho Tellem Chaho

Ahlem Mosteghanemi graced Alef Bookstore in London on Thursday 28 April to celebrate the launch of her novel عابر سرير translated into English as Dust of Promises (translation by Nancy Roberts, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016). Dust of Promises is the last of the three novels which form the renown trilogy of the author. The first,  ذاكرة الجسد , published in 1993 in Arabic, became a massive best seller, turning the author into a household name and a cornerstone of romance literature in Arabic. ذاكرة الجسد was translated by the American University of Cairo Press (2000) as Memory in the Flesh but the translation was, it has been said, a disapointment for the author. Bloomsbury Publishing then took on the task of retranslating into English not only ذاكرة الجسد , now The Bridges of Constantine (2014, translated by Raphael Cohen), but the next two novels, Chaos of the Senses released in 2015 (فوضى الحواس) and now Dust of Promises (عابر سرير) published in January 2016, with b...

Here are April's book recommendations from Algeria Writes , with special features and new releases in Algeria this month. All items are reviewed in English or in French - click on each picture or title to be redirected. Happy reading...!

‏ كُميكس‬ فاطمة انپاراپلي بقلم صافية ورزكي, رسوم محمود بن عمر و سامية ورزكي (Dalimen editions 2014)   Fatma n'parapli   written in Algerian Derja by Safia Ouarezki,  ink by Samia Ouarezki and drawings by Mahmoud Benameur   (published by Editions Dalimen in 2014) In Algiers' Casbah, children are playing and telling each other spooky stories inspired by neighbourhood gossip. "Fatma of the many umbrellas" and "Lalahoum" are two local women who live on their own. Lalahoum gets by, repairing shoes and administering natural and 'supernatural' remedies to women who are in need of comforting and support. Fatma collects broken umbrellas she finds thrown around and repairs them. These two women, while very much part of the social-scape of their neighbourhood, nonetheless stand out. They both charm and frighten those around them, their singularity allows them a certain freedom of action, one otherwise not auth...

Quand on pense « littérature algérienne », on pense à ses auteurs, à son corpus et à tous les synonymes auxquels on associe les thèmes qu’elle aborde… années 70, années 90, torture, injustices, illégitimité, métamorphoses monstrueuses, déception nationale à l’échelle galactique. Bref, dégoutage. Les romans qui composent la littérature algérienne, de par leurs sujets, peuvent ainsi sembler être la somme d’histoires déprimantes, l’issue desquelles est très souvent, pour ne pas dire toujours, pire que le début. Une littérature à priori noire, et plutôt macabre. Mais dans ce jeune corpus toujours grandissant, il existe aussi des histoires qui se terminent « bien » pour le dire platement, des histoires pleines de notes positives et des styles d’écritures séduisants, drôles et ingénieux, qui mènent à une lecture enrichissante et presque joyeuse.  Preuves à l’appui ? Voici cinq lectures pour commencer un printemps acidulé-sucré sur un ton ...

From afar, the Algerian  literary panorama may seem to have little to offer to crime fiction readers. The "classic novel" is still publishing houses' favourite and genre literature is not promoted in Algeria. But since the birth of the genre in Algeria in 70s, crime fiction does manage to punctually pierce through the net. Algerian crime writing doesn't suffer from a lack of imagination or style, the genre only suffers from not getting much visibility. It is this lack of visibility that at home and abroad has fed the the street myth that there are virtually no detective or crime fiction novels produced by Algerian writers. But a little hunt in Algeria's bookshops and discussions with readers are enough to show that Algerian writers have been having a lot of fun with the genre and have regularly produced detective and crime stories in French and Arabic over the last 40 years and continue to do so. I have been hunting for detective and crime writing by Alge...