Machaho Tellem Chaho

{(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.   ...

Once again the ‘One is never better served than by oneself’ axiom is proving entirely false as far as my experience is concerned. One is much better served by others, or at the very least much better helped - not meaning to sound royal. Thanks to Twitter this time round. I set out about six months ago to exclusively read literature written by Algerian writers (I use the term literature loosely). I wanted to see if there was a distinctive feature or thread in ‘Algerian novels’, a particular Algerian experience encrypted in the numerous works of those born and raised on that land. Or is literature in essence ‘universal’, drawn from a common source of knowledge and experience - you know the one high up there, limitless, mighty, impalpable and damn repetitive - similar in expression and theme for every place and every people. It turns out that this exclusive-reading is proving rather painful - I don’t recommend it - and I have taken a break several times to clear my h...