Gallimard returns to the Algiers Book Fair after the scandal surrounding the writer Kamel Daoud

The French publisher Gallimard made its return to the Algiers International Book Fair from which it was excluded two years after the controversy surrounding the novel Houris by the Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, according to the website of this event.

The Salon, a flagship event in Algerian cultural life, opened its doors to the public on Thursday. Its organizers did not specify the reasons for Gallimard's return. The French house was excluded from the 2024 and 2025 editions after the publication of Houris, a work at the heart of legal proceedings in Algeria and France and whose distribution remains prohibited in Algeria.

An Algerian, Saada Arbane, accuses the writer of having plundered her personal story to write it based on confidential information that she had entrusted to her psychotherapist, Aïcha Dahdouh, wife of Kamel Daoud. She initiated proceedings in Algeria and France.

A novel that divides

Houris, which in the Muslim faith refers to young girls promised to paradise, tells the fate of a mute young woman after an Islamist slit her throat on December 31, 1999. The novel won the Goncourt Prize in 2024, the most prestigious French literary award. Kamel Daoud, who lives in France, rejects these accusations and asserts that his novel is not based on the life of Ms. Arbane.

In a press release sent to AFP last week, Aïcha Dahdouh, prosecuted in Algeria for disclosure of medical confidentiality, denied any breach of professional confidentiality. The Oran court was due to deliver its deliberations in this case on Tuesday, but postponed its decision to an unspecified date, according to the local press.

Ms. Dahdouh also distanced herself from her husband's positions, declaring that she disagreed with him on "three essential questions: Algeria, Islam and Palestine." Kamel Daoud, banned from staying in Algeria, announced in April that he had been sentenced to three years in prison in his native country for having addressed the civil war in his novel translated into 32 languages. He is the subject of two international arrest warrants issued by Algeria.