Patient sues Algerian author over claims he used her in prize novel

This yr’s winner of France’s largest e-book prize is being sued in Algeria over claims he stole the story from a affected person of his psychiatrist spouse.

Kamel Daoud was awarded the Goncourt prize earlier this month for his novel Houris, a searing account of Algeria’s Nineties civil warfare through which as much as 200,000 folks had been killed.

But a girl who survived one of many massacres has appeared on Algerian tv, alleging that the e-book’s heroine – named Fajr – is predicated on her personal private story.

As a lady, Saada Arbane had her throat minimize in an Islamist militant assault that worn out most of her household, and now communicates by means of a talking tube. In the e-book, Fajr has suffered the identical destiny.

Ms Arbane stated that from 2015 she had a number of psychiatric classes with Daoud’s future spouse, Aicha Dahdouh, and he or she accused the couple of utilizing her story with out her consent.

She stated that many particulars within the heroine’s life – “her speaking tube, her scars, her tattoos, her hairdresser” – got here immediately from what she advised Ms Dahdouh. Likewise, she stated, Fajr’s relationship together with her mom and her need for an abortion.

Ms Arbane alleged she answered an invite to satisfy Daoud three years in the past, however refused when he requested if he might use her story as the premise for his e-book.

“It’s my life. It’s my past. He had no right to chuck me out like that,“ she told Algeria One TV.

Two lawsuits have been filed in Algeria against Daoud and his wife.

One cites rules on medical confidentiality. The second cites a law enacted after the end of the civil war which makes it a crime to “instrumentalise the wounds of the national tragedy”.

This “reconciliation” legislation vastly restricts the proper to publish or communicate publicly on the civil warfare, which explains why Daoud’s e-book has been proscribed in his dwelling nation and why his French writer Gallimard was banned from the latest Algiers e-book honest.

Daoud, who moved to Paris in 2020 and took French nationality, is a controversial determine in Algeria, the place he’s accused by a few of promoting out to the previous colonial energy.

He is the primary Algerian to win the primary Goncourt prize. An earlier work The Meursault Investigation received the perfect first novel award in 2015.

Daoud has but to react to the lawsuit, though the BBC has approached the writer for remark.

Antoine Gallimard, of the publishing agency, stated that the author was being made “the target of a campaign of violent defamation orchestrated by certain media close to the Algerian government.

“Houris was certainly inspired by the tragic events which happened in Algeria … but its plot, its characters and its heroine are purely fictional.”

The lawsuits towards Daoud and his spouse had been made public in Algeria on Wednesday by lawyer Fatima Benbraham, a girl described by Le Monde newspaper as a “fervent supporter of the regime”.

She stated the lawsuits had been filed in August, shortly after the e-book’s publication, however had been solely revealed now “because the plaintiffs did not want it to be said that they were trying to upset the [book’s] nomination for the Goncourt.”

The row comes at a time of worsening tensions between Algeria and France, triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s latest recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

Algeria is the historic backer of the Polisario independence motion.

Macron’s transfer angered many Algerians, who view the award to Daoud as a political moderately than a literary gesture.

Another award-winning French-based Algerian author Boualem Sansal was on Thursday reported to have gone lacking in Algeria, amid fears he has been arrested.

Sansal, 75, obtained French nationality earlier this yr however returned usually to Algeria. He is named a critic of the Algerian regime in addition to of Islamism.

He flew to Algiers from Paris on Saturday. His editor Jean-François Colosimo stated he had not been heard from since then.

“I am more than worried,” Mr Colosimo stated.