French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud on Monday won France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt, for a novel centred on Algeria’s civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s.
The jury needed just one round of voting to award the coveted prize to Daoud for his novel “Houris” about what has become known as Algeria’s “black decade”.
The book, written in French, is banned in Algeria.
Daoud was already known internationally for his 2013 debut novel “The Meursault Investigation” — a retelling of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” from the opposite angle — for which he won the First Novel category of the Goncourt prize.
The writer, who used to work as a journalist and columnist in Algeria, has stirred controversy with his analyses of society in Algeria and elsewhere in the Arab world.
In 2016 — following numerous cases of sexual assault on women by Arab migrants in Cologne, Germany — he wrote an op-ed piece published in the New York Times called “The Sexual Misery of the Arab World”. He said that “in some of Allah’s lands, the war on women and on couples has the air of an inquisition”, concluding that “sex in the Muslim world is sick”.
– ‘Especially for women’ –
Daoud often comments on issues in Muslim countries, most recently by posting about Iranian authorities arresting a female student on Saturday after she staged a solo protest against harassment by stripping to her underwear outside her university.
The post, on X, consists of a picture of a young woman in her underwear in colour surrounded by men and veiled women all in black-and-white and the one-word caption: “Iran”.
The prestigious Goncourt prize usually sparks book sales in the hundreds of thousands for the winning author.
However, the prize money itself amounts to just 10 euros ($11), paid by a cheque that winners usually frame and hang on the wall rather than cash.
“Houris” – its title is a reference to beautiful, virginal companions for faithful Muslim men in paradise — tells the story of a young woman who loses her voice when an Islamist cuts her throat as she witnesses her family being massacred during the civil war.
She later shares her experiences with her unborn child through an internal monologue.
“With Houris, the Goncourt Academy has crowned a book in which lyricism duels with tragedy and which gives a voice to the suffering linked to a dark time in Algeria, especially for women,” said Goncourt president Philippe Claudel.
With the novel, the author appears to challenge official Algeria’s continuing reluctance to address the war that began in January 1992 and killed tens of thousands of people, with some estimates as high as 200,000.
It is illegal in Algerian to publish any investigation into the civil war that began after the government cancelled an election, sparking an armed uprising by fundamentalist guerilla groups.
– ‘The freedom to write’ –
Publishing “Houris” was only possible “because I came to France”, Daoud told reporters. “Because this is a country that granted me the freedom to write,” said the 54-year-old who left his Algerian home city of Oran for France “because of circumstances” and was given citizenship.
Diplomatic relations between France and Algeria are currently tense because of President Emmanual Macron’s increasingly closer ties to neighbour and rival Morocco.
“Houris” French publisher Gallimard was banned from this month’s Algiers international book fair.
“Given what is going across the world at the moment, it is admirable to highlight a writer, and a book, describing war,” Daoud said, calling his award “a powerful signal”.
He was “very happy” about the win, Daoud said, admitting however that it was “cliche” to say so.
Daoud’s main rival for this year’s edition was Gael Faye, a Rwandan-born writer, composer and rapper, whose novel “Jacaranda” deals with the rebuilding of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.
While losing out on the Goncourt, Faye was Monday handed the Renaudot, another coveted prize awarded during the French literary competition season.
Macron, on X, congratulated both writers, saying that “thanks to their voices, our French language expresses beauty, tragedy and universality even better”.
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