AN EXPLOSION OF SENSES

The new voice of Maghreb literature.

Algeria is simmering. To stifl e rebellion, government sponsors young people with oil money. This is how Kamal Storah, a journalist also known as Kâmal Sûtra, gets a subsidy after his long unemployment. Then he decides to buy a minibus to drive passengers. Months later, disillusion strikes: too many buses are now operating, the ticket price is falling down and there is no work anymore. So, Kâmal decides to turn his minibus into a brothel on wheels. Denounced by Islamists and chased by police, our hero fl ees to Sahara and seeks
refuge with Tuaregs. In his new novel, Karim Akouche plays with blasphemy. He narrates a frustrated and disoriented youth, in a schizophrenic Algeria torn apart between archaism and desire for freedom.

KARIM AKOUCHE: Karim Akouche, born in 1978 in Kabylia (Algeria), is a poet, novelist and playwright. Living
in Montreal since 2008, he also is a columnist for many papers (Marianne, Causeur...). With The Religion of My Mother (previously published in Algeria and Quebec), he experienced censorship in Algeria : the authorities cancelled his conferences and he had to fl ee the country. He often participates in literary encounters in United States, Canada, France, Belgium, Middle East, Haiti, Spain, Germany... He is also the author of Letter To A Jihadist (2018), that was played at Festival d'Avignon, and of Allah in the Country of Lost Children (2019).