Lovers Of Algeria by Anouar Benmalek
A Swiss woman, Anna, walks the paths of a cemetery in present-day Algiers. She is searching for two names, those of her children, murdered more than 40 years previously by the FLN, the organization that fought for Algerian independence from the French in the early 1960s and whose leaders were convinced that the children's father, Nassreddine, was a traitor to their cause. Anna has returned to an Algeria rife with terrorism and the excesses of fundamentalism. "The devil has entered our country, and his footprints are everywhere," her friend Majid tells her as she sets out, undaunted, disguised in Muslim dress, on a perilous quest to find out whether the man she once loved is still alive. She is guided through the harsh and beautiful landscape by Jallal, a boy who sells peanuts in the Place des Martyrs. Captured by the militant "forces of Allah", the woman and boy must witness and endure all manner of brutality and degradation before Anna's and Nassreddine's destinies can finally converge. Anouar Benmalek's courageous novel confronts the tragedy of Algeria, its immediate past and present, as no other writer has done since Albert Camus, and in the process he tells a love story of immense tenderness.
"A remarkable and deeply moving novel, which it is important to read.. because it is good, very good, and deals unemotionally, and with humour and tact, with a burning issue: present-day Algeria. Anouar Benmalek shows us what everyday life was like for his compatriots caught up in a circle of vengeance, settling of accounts and despair, yet who succeed, despite everything, in surviving the horror"; Regine Deforges, L'Humanite
Anouar Benmalek was born in Casablanca in 1956 and lives now in France. After the 1988 riots in Algeria in protest at government policies, he became one of the founders of the Algerian Committee against Torture. The Lovers of Algeria was awarded the prestigious Prix Rachid. Benmalek's most recent novel, The Child of an Ancient People (published by Vintage in 2004) won the Prix R.F.O. du Livre.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781860468681 |
| ISBN 10 | 1860468683 |
| Title | Lovers Of Algeria |
| Author | Anouar Benmalek |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2001-10-18 |
| Number of pages | 320 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |