Adimi's novel is, of course, an attempt to reconstruct much of this that had been lost -- though she does so only with the lightest of brushstrokes.

The name of the shop comes from one of Jean Giono's books -- with Charlot having written to the master for permission to use the name.

Categories

No encuentro las palabras para transmitir lo maravilloso que ha sido perderme en las páginas de este pequeño gran libro. The sections focused on Ryad and Abdallah are more expansive -- though also touching on their lives beyond this brief episode -- and are a decent counterpart to the others. While sometimes a harrowing story, it's revealing with a little bit of googling just how much literary culture was wrapped up in the little bookshop. This book could lead you down many a French and Algerian literary rabbit holes. He finds a small spot -- 2b Rue Charras (conveniently near the university) -- and sets up shop, his ambition that it: "be a library, a bookstore, a publishing house, but above all a place for friends who love the literature of the Mediterranean". An unassuming, short, but by no means little book. It is equal parts memoir, novella, and biography. A memoir of a man I had never heard of, and wish that I had sooner. A novella of a nation. A biography of the history of a country which barely registers on some people's radars.

In 1994, she returned to Algeria, which was then under the influence of terrorism. Having very few opportunities to read, she started to write her own stories. A Bookshop in Algiers follows two timelines as we see the creation and then ruin of a bookshop that once felt like the heart of so many bibliophiles. Going between the 1930’s-1960’s and present day, we see two different characters and their relationships with books, and how books change them. The novella won the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) and I think I'll look for more titles from this prize list. Kaouther Adimi, (born 1986 Algiers) is a writer, graduate in modern literature and human resources management. She works today in Paris, where she has lived since 2009.

Pages

There are still books there when Ryad arrives, but he has little interest in them; still, he gets to know Abdallah and some of the locals, making for a nice small slice of contemporary life in Algiers -- and Ryad does get some sense of what is lost here.