Since the publication of her first novel Our Wealth, the Franco-Algerian Kaouther Adimi has been tracing her path as a novelist with intelligence and perseverance, thanks to the quality of her pen and the themes she addresses through fiction. His style is fluid and the construction of his novels is subtly balanced. His latest novel, Au vent mal, published by Editions du Seuil, tells a triangular story around a central character, Leïla, and two other characters, Tarek and Saïd, who are foster brothers; these two male protagonists are both secretly in love with Leïla, promised to a wealthy merchant much older than her, as was the character of Nedjma by Kateb Yacine, but in this case with a completely different symbolism and literary significance.
Without revealing the details of the story here, Leïla had the courage to leave this imposed husband by asking for a divorce. This decision, vital for her, was neither permitted nor accepted in the 1920s and 1930s, which places Leïla from the start of the novel in the category of Algerian women of character, powerful women in the sense that she knew to defy social and family prohibitions, as she says: “I was no longer a person, I had left my husband and in the village they did not forgive me. Her beauty and her appeal to men are also on display, and some women did not hide their jealousy of her. To avoid her father’s wrath, she went with her baby to Safia, Saïd’s mother and Tarek, the foster brother.
Beyond the intrigue which is tied around the three characters, Leïla, Tarek and Saïd, Kaouther Adimi draws up a historical fresco of one hundred years of the history of Algeria in its relationship with France. The pages scroll to the rhythm of flashbacks and present time. As the relationships are formed and unraveled, the great story intertwines with the story of these different characters with an intensity that is the strength of the novel. From colonial conquest to colonial times, from the Algerian war, from the war of liberation to the independence of the country, from the 1970s under the era of President Houari Boumedienne to the years of the dark decade that the people went through Algerian who had not finished counting his dead. The Algerian collective memory is present and alive.
Kaouther Adimi is a novelist born after the independence of Algeria and I underline this because the content of this fiction shows how much she is inhabited by the history of Algeria and France, recalling precise details which signal her interest for the historical archives, to the newspaper clippings of the periods described, concerning such and such a year, in relation to the experiences of its characters, fictitious? real? This is the ambiguity of the novel. In addition, certain details also reveal that the novelist is inspired by the responses she must have had from those who lived through the historical moments that she recreates. It thus includes information that authenticates the atmosphere it creates.
Au vent mal would express resentment and regret at the way the story of Tarek and Leïla was revealed publicly, through Saïd’s novel, which kept the real first names, as well as the name of the village of the three protagonists. In an interview, the novelist was indignant that the story of Tarek and especially of Leïla, was told in this way, putting a strain on Leïla’s life, the third part of the novel of which recounts the trauma that this successful novel by Saïd has given her. subjected, as well as to her daughters, her son and her second husband, Tarek.
Thus, reflection on literary creation in the face of facts and people who have existed is fruitful to discuss. Through this novel, Kaouther Adimi undermines any novelist who does not take the trouble to disguise reality somewhat, not to use the anonymity of the real people whose story is told. She actually recounts the suffering of her grandparents to whom she dedicates her novel and whose life was given to the general public. Where does the creator’s freedom begin from real people whose true identities are revealed? The whole question of the debate is fictionalized here. Through her fiction, the novelist stages the pains and pangs through which Leïla went through because of a reality presented as fiction, by Saïd who represents this successful author.
In addition, Kaouther Adimi talks about the characters who existed like Yacef Saadi, hero of the battle of Algiers, and Gilles Pontecorvo who turned this tragic page of history through his film The Battle of Algiers. These personalities act and express themselves as characters who have counted in the evolution of Tarek’s life, and therefore in the continuation of the story. Creative imagination for the purposes of the narrative? Facts that existed, like Tarek’s period of life in Rome? In any case, Kaouther Adimi’s story transports the reader, through the imagination, and through historical facts, while paying homage to his grandparents who did not ask to be in front of the stage. in a certain novel. The novelist offers strong fiction through the debate it can arouse.
* Benaouda Lebdai is a university professor of colonial and postcolonial African literature.
