The latest addition to my website is Kamel Daoud‘s Zabor ou Les psaumes [Zabor or The Psalms]. This novel, by the author of Meursault, contre-enquête (Meursault, Counter Investigation), is a superb novel, better, in my view, than Meursault, about an Algerian man who lives alone with his aunt, only comes out at night and writes the stories of the dying, so that they will be remembered in a remote Algerian town, where illiteracy is high. He has had a troubled relationship with his father who abandoned his mother early on (she died not long afterwards) and now has a large family with Zabor’s step-mother. He does not get on with his step-mother or step-brothers. However, his father is now dying and he is summoned to write his story. Nothing good can come out of this. Zabor is a contrarian, a lover of reading and writing and, apart from sex (he is a virgin), not much else but he is a wonderful, colourful creation. Other Press plan to publish it in English in 2019.
Amazing book…thank you Mr kamel