The writer who had to die for his terrifyingly good pen

‘What is so frightening about the new generation of dedicated bigots,’ Tahar Djaout asks his protagonist The guards‘is that they tolerate no pleasure, accept no other opinion and want nothing more than to subject the world to a completely unbending creed.’

This Algerian classic, now translated by Hester Tollenaar, was originally published in 1991. Two years later, Djaout was murdered by devoted bigots. One of the alleged gunmen later stated on television that the writer had to be killed because he had “a frighteningly good pen” that would turn Muslims away from their faith.

Bloody battle

The civil war of which Djaout fell victim is in The guards not started yet. He would only write about that bloody battle between Muslim extremists and the Algerian government in his posthumously published (and already translated) novel The last summer of reason.

The guards is set in the aftermath of the previous war, against the French. It is perhaps his dearest novel, Asis Aynan writes in his beautiful afterword: Djaout managed to write about everything that was wrong in his country.

What have twenty years of independence brought? Heavy repression, suffocating bureaucracy, fear and distrust everywhere. Djaout describes it, indeed, with a sharp pen in a clear, almost schematic story. The characters are a characteristic of Algerian society: the aging freedom fighter, the intellectual in dire straits, the radicalized Muslim, the calculating bureaucrat.

The plot is told quickly. Twenty years ago, old Menouar Ziada was ‘lucky enough to choose the right side’, not because of any patriotism, but because he was terrified of the soldiers who came to liberate the country. It gave him prestige, a nice apartment and an excellent pension. When he sees lights on in an abandoned carpentry workshop at night, he shares his suspicions with an acquaintance that rebels are hiding there.

The perspective shifts to Mahfoudh Lemdjad, the poor wretch who had rented the space. He turns out to be an inventor who wants to quietly tinker with his latest design: a small loom with which he wants to preserve a centuries-old custom and honor his grandmother. As a child, Mahfoudh was fascinated by her enchanting actions, ‘the movements of the long wooden beams that went up and down as the carpet increased in length and the geometric figures emerged’. Menouar’s vague suspicion gets him into big trouble.

Women are naturally on the sidelines in this society and this story. Menouar has nothing good to say about his wife, an old curmudgeon whose presence evokes no more in him than that of ‘a stool or a suitcase’. She is a ‘worn piece of furniture among other furniture ready to be thrown out’.

Here too, Djaout strongly emphasizes the contrast: Lemdjad does take his girlfriend seriously and even devotes all his time and attention to a ‘device for old women’.

Kafka

All this does not mean that The guards is superficial, or caricatured. However, it is deeply ironic at times. For example, the writer allocates five pages for a nerve-wracking passport control, and another ten for picking up an important package at the port, with incomprehensible application forms, closed gates and grumpy customs officers, where the character has no idea whether he will be arrested, or assisted. “And sir thinks I’m going to accept his check?” (The term ‘Kafkaesque’ comes to mind, but apart from the bureaucratic hassle, Kafka has little to do with Djaout’s meandering, often dreamy prose.)

Over the course of the book, the layers reveal themselves: just when you think you know what’s going on, who is right and who is wrong, the writer turns everything upside down. He could have cut back quite a bit on the flashbacks and sidesteps, especially in a story that clearly wants to be so emblematic. But it is especially clever how Djaout manages to make the fear and uncertainty of his main characters – both his main characters – palpable: this is what it must be like to live under a government that you cannot trust, to be prey to cold arbitrariness at every moment. can fall.

The acclaimed one-man publisher Jurgen Maas has once again made a special discovery.

Tahar Djaout, The guards, Publisher Jurgen Maas, 192 p., 22.95 euros. Translation from French by Hester Tollenaar.