Introduction to Kamel Daoud
Kamel Daoud arrives in a black sedan for his interview in Berlin, accompanied by two men dressed in black who never leave his side. The Algerian writer, who now lives in France, is under police protection: his most recent book not only gained him France’s most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt, but has also brought him into serious danger.
The Novel "Houris"
"Houris", which has now been published in German, is a novel that reports the massacre and torture that took place during the Algerian Civil War. It is not only taboo to discuss the war in Algeria, but in 2005 a law was passed that prohibited it – supposedly to promote "national reconciliation". "If you write such a novel, make enemies of the Islamists, the regime and even the intellectuals from the extreme left decolonial movement," said Daoud. "You don’t like anyone. A 17-year-old idiot with something that can be proven can be just as much a threat as the regime."
Threats and Consequences
"Houris" was banned in Algeria – in fact, all Daoud books were removed from the shops. The Algerian authorities have issued two international arrest warrants against him, but the Global Police Organization Interpol did not accept them. In addition, a woman has submitted a civil lawsuit against the writer who accused him of relying on her own history without permission. Daoud claims that this is a defamation and claims that the legal steps had been orchestrated by the regime.
The Algerian Civil War
Although the War of Liberation against French colonial rule (1954-62) still influences Algerian identity today, the government in Algiers does everything in its power to ensure that people forget the civil war of the nineties. At that time, the national army and Islamist terrorist groups involved bloody battles. Since then, a lot has remained in the dark, even the number of deaths that are usually estimated at around 200,000. The suffering of individual victims is rarely mentioned.
Silence about Victims and Perpetrators
Daoud wrote about the war as a reporter. "But there are things that you cannot write about, things that stay in your head. If you write a report on a massacre with 400 victims, 400 are only a number. But how do you convey the feeling of stepping over corpses?" he said. The novel "Houris" presents a different perspective. The narrator is a young woman who survived a massacre as a little girl. Her neck was cut, but it was saved.
Feminism and the Role of Women
Daoud was firmly convinced that the main actor of his novel should be a woman because they are those who pay the highest price in the war. "Men are forgiven," he said. "But what about women who were kidnapped by Islamists, when they were 13 or 14 years old, were raped and pregnant? The men came back after the war, but the women came back with their children. And nobody forgives them for it." The central character from the war only becomes pregnant after the war. But people still can’t forgive her. Algerian society wants to extinguish all memories of what it refers to as a "black decade" and sees the visible scar on the narrator’s neck as a provocation.
Resistance to Detention at Home
Shortly after "Houris" was published in France in 2024, Daoud was accused of being Islamophobic and playing into the hands of right-wing extremists. He vehemently rejects these accusations: "Islamophobia is a western illness, not a mine," he said. "I have experienced a civil war in which I killed Islamists. I have the right to raise my voice and you have no right to silence me." Daoud’s attitude is comparable to that of his compatriot and friend Boualem Sansal, who was also written and censored about the Algerian Civil War period while he received important literary awards.
The Plight of Boualem Sansal
Sansal’s work has been critical of both Islamist violence and the Algerian regime for many years. Like Daoud, he recently became a French citizen. However, he was arrested at the end of 2024 for entry into Algeria and has been sentenced to five years in prison since then. This is worrying for Daoud – not only because Sansal is a friend, but also because of the threat to his own security. "If the regime has succeeded in spending two international arrest warrants against me, they really want me to sit on Sansal’s side," he said.
