Novel
اللاز
Not translated into English
Tahar Ouettar · 1974
Synopsis
The Ace: in an Algerian village, during the war of independence, al-Laz, an illegitimate child of brutal character, makes himself feared by all, and his ties with the officer who commands the French barracks raise suspicion of betrayal. His meeting with Zidane, a communist intellectual and revolutionary leader, decides him to break with his past life and take to the maquis. There he discovers a revolution riven by ideological divisions, where fighters turn on others for their ideas.
Context
The novel appeared in Algiers in 1974 and is counted among the first Arabic-language novels published in independent Algeria. It addresses what the official narrative left unsaid: the elimination of communists by the nationalist leaders during the war of liberation. Its author had conceived it as early as 1958 and wrote it between 1965 and 1972, according to the studies devoted to it. It was translated into French under the title L'As, by Bouzid Kouza and Idris Boukhari, at Temps actuels, in 1983.
Who it is for
A novel of about two hundred and fifty pages in Arabic, readable in French, which calls for some knowledge of the currents that made up the armed struggle.
Prizes and reception
Selected among the hundred best Arabic novels of the twentieth century, it is the book with which its author's name remains associated.
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