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On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Abdelhamid Benhedouga, the 28e Algiers International Book Fair (SILA) paid tribute on Friday to one of the founding fathers of the Algerian novel of Arabic expression. A meeting, held at the Assia Djebar room, brought together writers, researchers and critics around the same conviction: it is time to reread Benhedouga with contemporary critical tools and to reinscribe his work at the heart of the national literary heritage.
The meeting opened with the intervention of Waciny Laredj, who recalled the importance of placing Abdelhamid Benhedouga at the center of Algerian literary heritage. For him, the author of “Rih El Djanoub” (The South Wind) is not limited to being a great writer, but embodies the true founder of the Algerian novel of Arabic expression. “He was able to give this genre a fully accomplished aesthetic identity, where previous attempts, like those of Ahmed Rédha Houhou, still remained at the sketch stage,” he said.
Waciny Laredj highlighted Benhedouga’s remarkable ability to “listen to his time and his society”, highlighting in him a deep sense of realism and an almost prophetic vision of the upheavals that occurred after independence. In “Rih El Djanoub”, he recalled, the author already announced the disillusionments of the postcolonial era by choosing to make the feudal lord triumph at the end of the story. Laredj also called for a critical and academic rereading of his work, based on contemporary approaches, while proposing the organization of a major national conference on the occasion of the writer’s centenary.
Researcher Samia Idriss, for her part, returned to the diversity of Benhedouga’s career, as a novelist, short story writer, poet and radio author. She recalled that her texts, far from being turned towards the past, accompany the changes in Algerian society through realistic and deeply human writing. For Idriss, the author was able to capture the social and cultural transformations of his time while pleading for “a reconciliation of the cultural components of Algeria”. She proposed that her works be integrated into university programs to nourish students’ literary and critical reflection.
For his part, critic Bakhti Dhaifallah estimated that reading Benhedouga today requires “new keys to analysis”, as his writing is linked to the political and social changes that Algeria has experienced over the decades.
Anis Benhedouga, son of the writer, gave a personal testimony about his father. He spoke of “a man of a unique generation”, born between two world wars, witness and actor in the major stages of Algerian history, from colonization to independence. He spoke in particular of the painful episode of the destruction of the family library by the colonial army, which nevertheless did not dampen his father’s passion for culture. Abdelhamid Benhedouga would later rebuild this library through writing, signing more than 200 radio plays, including around thirty devoted to the Algerian Revolution, and producing emblematic programs like Sawt El Djazaïr min Tounes (The voice of Algeria from Tunis).
For Anis Benhedouga, “Rih El Djanoub” remains “an immortal work” because it expresses with rare accuracy the contradictions and hopes of human beings in the face of history. He concluded by launching a call to rediscover the great figures of Algerian literature, “whose writings contain human and cultural experiences which deserve to be transmitted and reread by future generations”.