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Books

Women in the various hells of Algiers

Present-day Algeria, as revealed in a review of Boualem Sansal’s Harraga, lies somewhere between nightmare and soap opera

29 November 2014

9:00 AM

29 November 2014

9:00 AM

Harraga Boualem Sansal, translated from the French by Frank Wynne

Bloomsbury, pp.276, £16.99, ISBN: 9781408843987

On the surface Harraga is the story of two ill-matched women colliding dramatically, with life-changing consequences. What emerges, in throwaway fragments, is a picture of Algeria’s chequered past and present; a history of conquest and occupation. It’s a sugar-coated pill with a burning, bitter core.

Boualem Sansal is an Algerian writer recently nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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