This February 2022, we share our second “In Focus” section, edited by Nadia Ghanem and Leonie Rau. For “New & Inventive Voices,” we asked a number of Algerian writers to put together a list of their highlights from among recent books. Zakia Allal has also put together a special feature on novelists who have shaped contemporary Algerian literature. In “30 Reads: A Month of Algerian Women Writers,” Nadia Ghanem has brought together 30 days of reading suggestions by Algerian women writers. Explore more special features below, with more from our archives on the left.
30 Reads: A Month of Algerian Literature by Women
On why Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth) is a time of joy and sorrow: By Nadia Ghanem Women in Translation Month is always a time of great excitement for me, but as a reader addicted to Algerian fiction it is also a time for sorrow. Few novels written by Algerian women have been translated (to English or to any other languages), and if I stuck to the list of works that have appeared in English ...
6 Algerian Women Writers Whose Work Should Be Translated into English
LitHub has kicked off its series of "books by women we'd love to see translated into English" with a German list of ten from Katy Derbyshire. An Arabic list is coming soon, but unfortunately has nothing from Algeria. Nadia Ghanem, who writes about Algerian literature for ArabLit and HuffPost Maghreb, compiled a list of six: By Nadia Ghanem Amal Bouchareb (أمل بوشارب) Amal Bouchareb was born in 1984 in Damascus. She released one short story collection Thirteen on Her ...
Writers Select: New & Inventive Algerian Voices
Curated by Leonie Rau and Nadia Ghanem As part of our special "In Focus: Algeria" section, we asked a number of Algerian writers, translators, and scholars to put together a list of their highlights from Algerian literature. If you were to choose 4-7 titles that would represent, to you, the most interesting books (perhaps experimental, challenging, or influential in some way) written by Algerian writers in the last 10 years, what would they be? And ...
Six Algerian Novelists Whose Work Is Shaping Algerian Literature
By Zakia Allal Samia Ben Driss Ben Driss's 'Maryam's Tree' Samia Ben Driss is an Algerian writer who was born in 1971 in Ferdjioua in Mila Province. She received her doctorate from the University of Constantine and is currently a professor at the University Center Abdelhafid Boussouf. She has published three novels: رائحة الذئب / The Smell of the Wolf in 2015, شجرة مريم / Maryam’s Tree in 2016 and بيت الخريف / The House ...
The Story of 50 Years of Algerian Crime Fiction in 60+ Books
What does crime fiction look like when set in a society where the justice system is broken? By Nadia Ghanem Crime, together with actions defined as criminal, are very much at the forefront of debates in Algeria at the moment. Over the course of the peaceful nationwide protests that began in February, a worrying number of women and men who have marched bearing the Amazigh flag on Fridays have been arrested. These arrests, reported to have ...
Why Algerian Author Zehira Houfani Quit Writing Detective Novels
This interview was originally conducted by our Algeria Editor Nadia Ghanem in French and translated into English. In it, Ghanem and novelist Zehira Houfani discuss what led the author to and away from the detective genre: By Nadia Ghanem Zehira Houfani is an Algerian writer who started publishing in the 1980s. She published two detective novels, among which is Les pirates du desert (Pirates of the Desert, 1986), set in Tamanrasset, an oasis city in southern Algeria. Few women have written ...
A Look at 100 Books: Algerian Literature in English Translation
Which Algerian books have been translated to English, which haven't, and which should be? By Nadia Ghanem *This list was updated in September 2021. Since 2018, when this article first appeared on ArabLit, Kaouther Adimi’s Our Riches, translated by Chris Andrews, was released by New Directions in 2020, and Tara Press are currently working on the translation of Rabia Djelti’s prose novel The Prophetess. Djamila Morani’s part historical, part crime fiction novel The Djinn’s Apple ...
Recommended sites:
Algérie littéraire by journalist Sarah Kharfi
Machaho Tellem Chaho by ArabLit editor Nadia Ghanem
Algerian Women Writers, also by Nadia Ghanem
Book Nomad podcast’s Algeria section
Algérie littéraire by journalist Sarah Kharfi
Machaho Tellem Chaho by ArabLit editor Nadia Ghanem
Algerian Women Writers, also by Nadia Ghanem
Book Nomad podcast’s Algeria section
All Articles on Algeria
From ALQ: Football Chants and a Football-issue Playlist
"This chant reflects the intersections of football, politics, socioeconomics, migration, and the feelings of hogra. For those who want to escape the ills of the homeland, the wooden boat is often a symbol of their freedom." ...
30 Reads: A Month of Algerian Literature by Women
"Of course, I do enjoy painting for you, right now, a slightly more calamitous situation than the one I actually face – I blame Algerian fiction’s long love affair with tragedies for my theatrics. But the truth is still harsh." ...
From the Archives: Safia Ketou, the First Algerian Sci-fi Novelist of Post-independence Algeria
"– You are on the Mauve Planet." ...
Friday Finds: Salah Badis’s ‘The Nayf’
The protagonists of Salah Badis' "The Nayf" meet in front of a broken ATM in an upper-class Algiers neighborhood ...
