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Multiple Nobel Prize-winning authors have signed a petition to demand the release of Algerian writer Boualem Sansal. Boualem Sansal, a 75-year-old Franco-Algerian writer famous in France and around the world for his novels that critique Islamic extremism in Algeria, was arrested in Algiers on 16 November as he returned from Paris. News of his arrest follows initial fears of Sansal’s disappearance, provoking even France’s president Emmanuel Macron to demand information on his whereabouts.
Algerian press has confirmed Sansal is in detention in the country but there is no official word of the charges against him. In response to the arrest, French news magazine Le Point has released a letter written by Kamel Daoud and signed by multiple famous authors, demanding Sansal’s immediate release. “This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment, and the surveillance of the entire society,” the letter reads.
Signatories of the letter include the Nobel Prize winners , Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Orhan Pamuk, and Wole Soyinka. Sansal himself has been regularly tipped as a potential winner of the prize. Others to sign the letter include renowned authors , Peter Sloterdjik and Roberto Saviano.
“Sansal writes, he does not kill and does not imprison anyone,” Daoud implores. Throughout his literary career, Sansal has courted controversy for his literary critiques of Algeria and its relationship to Islamic extremism such as his 2008 novel "Le village de l'Allemand" which follows two Algerian brothers who discover their father was a Nazi who fled to the country after the war. Abroad, Sansal has been decorated for his work.
He won the Prix du Premier Roman for his debut novel and the Prix Nessim Habif in Belgium. In 2012, he won the Editions Gallimard Arabic Novel prize from the Arab Ambassadors Council, based in Paris. However, the €15,000 prize money was withdrawn from the author when the council learned he had visited the Jerusalem Writers Festival earlier that year.
“In Algeria, writers and intellectuals, publishers, and booksellers live in fear of reprisals, accusations of espionage and arbitrary arrests, trials and defamation, and violent media attacks on their staff and loved ones,” the letter accuses the government. It notes the political surveillance that followed the last Algiers Book Fair and their efforts to remove offending books. To the defenders of freedom, Today, I address you with deep concern.
My friend, the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, was arrested on Saturday, November 16. This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment, and the surveillance of the entire society. From now on, everything is possible: life imprisonment for a text message, prison for a sigh of annoyance.
Sansal looks like an old biblical prophet, smiling. He provokes passions and friendships as much as the hatred of the submissive and the jealous. He is free and amused by life.
He writes books about the storms and abstract lights of our time, and he enjoys the hatred of others. Sansal writes, he does not kill and does not imprison anyone. His innocence in the face of the dictatorship made him forget the reality of the Terror in Algeria for several years.
He neglected to look at the pack that awaited him, he returned to visit his country that Saturday. He paid dearly for it. Boualem Sansal, known for his courage and commitment, has always been a critical voice against oppression, injustice, and Islamist totalitarianism.
In Algeria, writers and intellectuals, publishers, and booksellers live in fear of reprisals, accusations of espionage and arbitrary arrests, trials and defamation, and violent media attacks on their staff and loved ones. A real editorial terrorism targets them. The last Algiers Book Fair took place under strict police surveillance and searches to remove certain books.
We cannot remain silent. It is a matter of freedom, the right to culture and our lives, writers targeted by this terror. I am launching an urgent appeal for international solidarity: Let us demand the immediate release of Boualem Sansal and all writers imprisoned for their ideas.
Let us commit to defending and supporting them. Additional sources.
