A classic through the ages, Faust paper having signed a pact with the devil to accomplish his destiny, to shine for all eternity. Published in 1956, Nedjma is of this breed-there. An offering of words, a feast of reading which does not offer with ease. If the style takes everything in its path, the construction of fiction falls within the maze of a medina with a thousand lanes and alleys. Four men are thrown by the author in the French department of Bône, named during the colonization. Annaba is his real name. Mustapha, Lakhdar, Rachid, Mourad are four young men, labourers, of the flesh sites, four colonized who are subjected to the day-to-day bullying, beatings, abuse, career, held by a Frenchman. On the first day, when one asks if the boss is correct, another closes the discussion by raising his shirt, scars on the lower back. The whip of the foreman. They're going to pick the word, these emigrants in their own country, warm words and testimony to the contact of Nedjma, "very brown, almost black", or " of the flesh in the bar, nerves taut, solidly-constructed ". She has " the breasts huge, drawn up towards God ". The mestizo channeling anger and confessions, desires of revenge, of justice. She is the daughter of an Algerian and a French woman. Through this character is symbolic, they emancipate themselves, recover their words, their stories, those of their ancestors, their.
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Seven years to achieve
Kateb Yacine, a native of Constantine, took part in the events of Sétif in 1945, a gesture which earned him four months in prison. He will go to France, and then will come back soon in Algeria. There will be a journalist, a docker, will publish this first novel, will travel, will live in Tunisia for some time. What is the protrusion with respect to the "Bônois who cheat at cards, but cry at the cinema" without any doubt " it is the influence of refined Tunisia, which is the cause of all this ". This could be the Carver of North Africa, a sum of characters, small events, of misfortunes added that, once the 275 pages closed, form a great story. This could be a version cacophonous Ulysses of Joyce. A novel that can be read non-linearly, starting from the middle, go down and then rush towards the end. The first sentence, " Lakhdar has escaped from his cell ", re-emerges to the front-to-last page, as well as the situation that will follow. Of all the literature on the algerian French-language, Nedjma is without doubt one of its jewels. "The basic text ", in the words of Tahar Djaout, the author of the security Guards, key book published in 1987. Under the sun-black of Gérard de Nerval, one of its poets, favorites, Kateb Yacine was successful debut in literature. To read and reread.
* Nedjma of Kateb Yacine. editions du Seuil, 1956. 275 pages. Collection of pocket Points. 7,40 euros.
