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A stage bearing the theme “Romantic Experiences” brought together, on Friday, Kouther Adimi, Allaoua Koussa and Fatima Almine, as part of the 28th Algiers International Book Fair, within the Esprit Panaf space, which this year bears the name of Franz Fanon. Three writings, three paths, but the same questioning: what is writing today in Algeria? Between aesthetic reflection, quest for identity and critical look at society, the speakers offered intersecting visions of a literature in the midst of change.
The novelist and linguist, Fatima Almine, opened the discussion with a reflection on the place of the novel in Algerian literature, which she describes as an “art of thought and beauty”. She was interested in what she calls desert literature, citing the work of Seddik Hacène Hadj Ahmed Ziwani as an important milestone in this sensitivity. Looking back on her own journey, from her detective novel “Orphan Love”, influenced by Agatha Christie, to “The Blue Man and the War”, she explained how desertification becomes for her a narrative space that is both symbolic and existential, where the memory of the place and human resilience are replayed.
For his part, Kouther Adimi spoke about the architectural dimension of the novel, affirming that writing is above all “a question of form before being a question of substance”. Each project, she explains, begins with a plan, a structure thought of as an “engineering of meaning”. An avid reader, she cites Milan Kundera, Assia Djebar, Amara Lakhous, Tahar Ouettar and Benhedouga among her influences, believing that “to read is to write differently”.
As for Allaoua Koussa, academic and novelist, he shared his experience of the difficult transition from academic writing to literary creation. According to him, “the risk is that the theory dries up the spontaneity of language”. He claims intuitive writing, “guided by instinct more than by analysis”, and says he voluntarily avoids the question of the origin of inspiration, which he considers to be mysterious and sacred.
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