i
f the Goncourt 2014 slipped
through his hands to reward Don’t
Cry by Lydie Salvayre, Kamel Daoud
has surely won the heart of both
the critics and the public with his
.first novel
Meursault, contre-enquête is a
literary prowess, an answer, 72 years later, to
L’Etranger by Albert Camus. The Algerian writer
reappropriates the story of the Arab’s murder in
order to right a wrong, which is the complete
absence of Algerian characters in the original
story but especially Camus’ refusal to offer an
.identity to « The Arab » killed by Meursault
The first scene of Kamel Daoud’s novel stands as
a tribute to this denied figure of litterature. We