The Lovers of Algeria

It's the long Midsummer weekend over here and I have been celebrating with enjoying the days off and, surprise, surprise, reading! :) I spent most of yesterday with one of the books from my latest library loot, The Lovers of Algeria by Anouar Benmalek.

The Lovers of Algeria is a heart-wrenching novel about two lovers separated by circumstances they could not have done anything about. It is also a novel about the insanity of war, terrorism and colonialism.

The story begins in 1955, when Swiss Anna, a former circus artist, and Arab Nassreddin have just been married in his native Algeria. Forty years later Anna returns to Algeria to visit the graves of her and Nassreddin's murdered twins. Algeria in the 1950s was not an easy place to be for a mixed race couple, and Algeria in the 1990s is a very dangerous place for foreigners. As Anna decides to try and reach Nassreddin's old homestead she employs the little Jallah, a street-urchin from Algiers to act as her "grandson". Before leaving Algiers Anna sends a telegram to Nassreddin without knowing if he is still alive or not.

Something very bad happens during Anna and Jallah's trip. Here the writer very cleverly turns the narrative into reminiscences from Anna's, and also Nassreddin's childhood and yound adulthood. We get to know how they actually met and fell in love and what happened to their children.

Well, I think I'll leave telling about the plot here. You just have to read The Lovers of Algeria yourselves to learn more about what happenes in the story! All I can say that this was a book that I did not want to put down. I started reading it on Friday and spent most of Saturday with it in order to finish it as quickly as possible. I wanted very badly to know how the story ends! And I must say that even the ending was very well written.

This is the only book I've ever read that is set in Algeria. My only critisim with the book is that it was sometimes a bit too violent for me, but I also acknowledge that the violence was an integral part of the narrative and simply had to be there.

I'm a bit behind with my participation in the Reading the World Challenge. I did not finish any book for the challenge in May, and will thus not be able to complete the challenge in time in July, but I hope it is okay to bend the rules a little. :) I will count The Lovers of Algeria as my Africa book for the challenge. Let's see if I then try and read my two remaining books (South America and Antarctica) both in July or I might also read one in July and the other in August.