On August
5 1973, Algeria's National Publication House (the SNED) released
'D. Counter-Attacks' (D. contre-attaque) by Abdelaziz Lamrani, a detective novel
at the crossroad of spy fiction and murder mystery. D. Counter-Attacks is a typical spy novel of the 1970s (typical for Algeria):
two Algerian agents, Samyr and Tarek, are sent by Algeria's secret
services to Spain, in order to thwart the plans of zionists. Fighting against
zionism is a big topic in Algerian crime fiction of the early to mid 1970s that also features multilingual alpha males flexing their muscles
and women swooning. The investigation is fast-pasted, pan-Arabist in spirit,
thoroughly mysoginistic, and ends in an odd and long rant about men having to
pay the restaurant bill. If you're in the right mood, it's hilarious.
In 1973, detective
novels produced in Algeria were recent in the country's publication history.
Four novels by Youcef Khader (the pseudonym of Roger Vilatimo) had been
published in 1970, marking the birth of the detective novel born (i.e. published)
in Algeria. Youcef Khader was a French citizen, of Catalan origins, and so if
we are to look for a timeline of when Algerian novelists began to themselves
write and publish crime novels, then D. Counter-Attacks seems to mark a turn.
Before crime fiction
was given a space in the Algerian literary sphere in book format,
crime fiction was to be found in Algerian newspapers. The journalist and
fiction writer Chenouf-Benoudi is known to have published a number of crime/spy short stories in the
An-Nasr newspaper in 1967, and from 1968 in the newspaper Algérie Actualités.
Chenouf-Boudi published 'Le fellah, l'ex-tirailleur et le commissaire
politique' (The Fellah, the ex-skirmisher, and the political commander) in
An-Nasr, on 20 September 1967 and on 7 October 1967 - a short story with a
detective twist it would seem. When An-Nasr newspaper first appeared, it was
produced in French, and a few years later the edition moved to the Arabic language. Several of Chenouf-Boudi's
short stories, from 1969 and later, feature an investigating spy called R-13, a
type of character, as mentioned above, typical of early Algerian crime novels (see Youcef Khader, Abdelaziz Lamrani, and Abhari Larbi).
Chenouf-Boudi is probably one of
many Algerian writers who, post independence, published crime fiction in
newspapers, stories that were never collected in book format. Crime fiction is one
of several types of literary production such as sci-fi, comics, and theatre,
for which earlier works initially appeared in newspaper, and are now
lost.
So to celebrate the birth of the
Algerian crime novel, and Abelaziz Lamrani's classic work, a PDF of the book ismade available here. Enjoy it!
For more Algerian Crime Fiction titles, see a list of over 60 books here.
For a list of Ahmed Chenouf-Boudi's stories, see here.
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