Tahar Djaout

This elegantly haunting work of fiction features bookstore owner Boualem Yekker, who lives in a country overtaken by a radically conservative party known as the Vigilant Brothers, a group that seeks to control every aspect of life according to the precepts of their rigid moral theology. The belief that no work of beauty created by humans should rival the wonders of their god is slowly consuming society, and the art once treasured is now despised. Boualem resists the new regime with quiet determination, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now empty family life, and his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him. "Books have been the compost in which Boualem's life ripened, to the point where his bookish hands and his carnal hands, his paper body and his body of flesh and blood very often overlap and mingle. In the end Boualem himself didn't see a clear distinction any more. He has met so many characters in books, he has come in contact with so many destinies that his own life would be nothing without them." Marketing plans for The Last Summer of Reason : A percentage of proceeds go to ABFFE. Joint promotions with ABFFE and member stores, including highlight in Bookselling This Week .Galley mailing & BookSense Galley Program participationNational advertisingCo-op available Tahar Djaout was considered one of the most promising writers of his generation, and was a firm believer in democracy. Djaout's murder was attributed to the Islamic Salvation Front, who reported that he was killed because he "wielded a fearsome pen." He is the author of eleven books, including the novel Les vigiles , which won the Prix Mediterrane.

À quoi servent nos morts si nous ne pouvons exhiber leurs reliques ? Au lendemain de la guerre d'indépendance, cet étrange raisonnement réveille les régions d'Algérie les plus reculées. Retrouver leurs morts, tel est le leitmotiv des survivants. Et sur les routes, on voit passer des convois de paysans, à la recherche des chers ossements, perdus bien loin de leurs villages dont ils sortent souvent pour la première fois.Le narrateur du roman, un jeune Kabyle, a été désigné par sa famille pour retrouver les mânes de son frère, tué au maquis comme tant d'autres. Pour le jeune garçon, le but du voyage n'est qu'une supercherie : pourquoi diable ramener au pays les cendres de ceux qui ont souvent choisi la guerre pour s'échapper de leurs pays trop sévères ? Mais le voyage en lui-même est autrement plus excitant : tout est nouveau pour les yeux émerveillés de celui qui n'a jamais quitté le bled. Le récit prend alors un tour initiatique, mêlé d'une nostalgie qui nous entraîne au fil des souvenirs d'enfant. --Karla Manuele

The renowned author of The Last Summer of Reason achieved his greatest acclaim for this elegant, chilling novel, winning France's prestigious Prix Mditerrane in 1991 . The Watchers is a politically and morally resonant fable of malevolent bureaucracy, thoughtless fundamentalism, and the danger of sacrificing liberty in the name of patriotism. With equal parts sensuous prose and passionate politics, The Watchers follows the fortunes of two men during one sweltering North African summer. Menouar Ziada, a veteran on the winning side of past wars, is living out a peaceful life and dreaming of a country home. Just down his suburban street, inventor Mahfoudh Lemdjad has developed a loom that he desperately wants to patent. Unfortunately, he soon finds himself caught in a Kafka-esque tangle of forms, passports, interviews, and clerks bent on thwarting his efforts. At the same time, Mahfoudh's mysterious project and odd hours dredge up old, suspicious instincts in Menouar and his fellow veterans, drawing them inexorably further into a labyrinth of blame and fear from which there's only one escape.Algerian author Tahar Djaout has become known as a journalist and political figure since his assassination in 1993 by an Islamic fundamentalist group for the effects of his "fearsome pen." During his life, Djaout was also regarded as one of Algeria's finest novelists and the spearhead of a renaissance in native North African (Maghrebi) arts and culture. With The Watchers , readers have an opportunity to experience this incisive writer at his finest-and, at a time when American civil liberties are constantly losing out to "national security" concerns, to contemplate the dark consequences of a culture of suspicion. Praise for The Last Summer of "An elegiac ode to literature and a furious protest against intolerance."- The New York Times Book Review "A chilling cautionary tale."- Philadelphia Enquirer

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Receuil de nouvelles de Tahar Djaout

Afin de répondre à une commande éditoriale, un homme s'applique à écrire l'histoire d'une dynastie médiévale venue des confins du Sahara pour soumettre tout le Maghreb. Mais ressusciter le passé est une entreprise qui peut lâcher soudain sur le présent des hantises et des démons insoupçonnés. En marge de sa tâche, l'homme rêve sur les déserts : celui de l'Afrique du Nord, celui de l'Arabie et aussi celui de la ville d'Europe où il s'est réfugié pour écrire. Écrire dans les villes froides... Ma tête est semblable à ces outres où les Indiens transportent, au gré de leurs migrations, les os de leurs ancêtres. L'histoire almoravide clignote dans un lointain assoupissement, elle cliquette à l'intérieur de mon crâne, avec des remontées brutales qui allument un feu sous l'occiput. Alors, le désert et son été perpétuel crèvent l'écorce du monde. Une enclume infatigable s'installe dans le ciel, allumant des étincelles dans l'atmosphère en kermesse. C'est quelque chose de propre au désert, cette désolation qui rit.

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Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

NO issue with this copy.