Novel
Le Serment des barbares
Not translated into English
Boualem Sansal · 1999
Synopsis
In Rouiba, a town in the Mitidja that has become an industrial suburb of Algiers, two murdered men are buried on the same day: Si Moh, a rich businessman and local godfather, and Abdallah Bakour, a very poor former farm labourer. The investigation into the first falls to policemen in no hurry to find anything; the one into the second goes to Si Larbi, an old inspector close to retirement, who, in the course of his wanderings, senses between the two crimes a link that everyone would rather ignore.
Context
Published by Gallimard in 1999, the novel takes the form of a crime story, but the investigation alternates with chronicles in which the author reviews the police, the hospital, the Casbah, the National Liberation Front and its rivals, the Islamists, the former settlers and the mafias. It dismantles the official legends of the war of independence and brings to light hidden episodes, such as the bloody struggles between Messalists and supporters of the Front. Reissued in Folio in 2001, it has not been translated into English.
Who it is for
For understanding Algeria's dark years and the lies of official memory, through a teeming investigation.
Prizes and reception
The book won the Prix du premier roman and the Prix Tropiques in 1999; Jean-Louis Joubert sees in it a chaotic encyclopedia of contemporary Algeria.