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(Article+video) Yasmina Khadra settles her accounts. He does it in an unfortunate way in Qu'attendent les singes, the last novel published by Casbah editions, in Algiers, and Julliard, in Paris.

Khadra: "If Algeria sank into… by lejdd

A novel that looks like a thriller or rather a pamphlet with several boxes, perhaps even a hasty indictment. The whole story is just a pretext for the writer, who has been living in France for years, to pour out his resentment, his hatred and his disgust on everything, Algeria, the Algerians, the jealous, the incompetent. It's allowed in literature, but not to the point of stifling the narrative, of giving the impression of twisting the neck of the imagination to climb the stairs of revenge step by step by taking the reader hostage. This is the story of a crime.

The victim ? A young student found dead in the forest of Baïnem, west of Algiers. Her name ? Nedjma, of course. A nod to Kateb Yacine? Possible. Yasmina Khadra does not break her head too much. The bad guys are in their place, the good guys don't exist. Ed Dayem is a rich and manipulative press boss. “Ed Dayem is not just anyone. When he puts his hand in his pocket, we hear senators, deputies, magistrates, mayors and a lot of notables stirring like small change (…) He spent his life breaking careers and homes, torpedoing alliances and projects” , writes the novelist.

Ed Dayem, nicknamed "Ed", uses his newspapers and web media to grow his business. It is in fact only an instrument in the hands of Haj Hamerlaine, one of the “rboba” (masters) of Algeria. The rbobas? “The rboba are a closed door, a perilous maze for the uninitiated. Ed knows them all, knows their paths paved with human bones, deadly traps and hidden treasures, their modus operandi…”, explains the narrator.

Plagiarized

He quotes a well-inspired imprisoned trade unionist who wrote on the wall of the cell: “The rboba will never die, will always be there, enthroned on the ashes of a vanished world. And as the obvious evidence would have it, Ed Dayem is on the "periphery" of this gloomy universe, he receives orders from Haj Hamerlaine who "naturally" resides in Hydra on the heights of Algiers. Hamerlaine, who has never set foot in school, owes her fortune to Emma, ​​a brothel owner. There was only a factotum mistreated by the landlady! And what did Hamerlaine do to “enter” the national history of Algeria? "When the FLN anathematized vices and started hunting pimps and drunkards, I went up to Emma's room and bled her like a sow with my rusty penknife," says the heroic Hamerlaine tone.

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Fiction, see! Yasmina Khadra takes care of the character, Nora, a commissioner with a strong character, who leads the investigation into Nedjma's murder and despises men. Ed Dayem doesn't like intellectuals, neither does the author! It is enough that Ed Dayem receives an editor, Jha, and a young author, Baasous Llaz, a curious name, so that the shower is released. “Ah!… the terrible slayer of our most famous writer”, launches Ed Dayem to the address of Jha. Ed Dayem evokes -of course- Jonathan Klein. This literature teacher at the University of Bakesrfield in the United States would have accused Yasmina Khadra of having plagiarized L'As, the novel by Tahar Ouettar in his book The privilege of the Phoenix. Jonathan Klein was quoted by Karim Sarroub, writer and journalist, in a blog. The same Karim Sarroub accused Yasmina Khadra of having plagiarized Les amants de Padovani, the novel by Youcef Dris, in What the day owes to the night.

Journalist

The author's response is stunning in Qu'attendent les singes, through the voice of Edayem: “You have made yourself a costume that is too big for you, Mr. Llaz. Jonathan Klein is not an American, but an Algerian from our hometown, an intellectual kahl arras as only our dear homeland is capable of muck up, a whore of his race of bicot sick of jealousy who thinks of raising a tsunami by throwing A bombshell. “It goes without saying that “the famous writer”, mentioned by the angry press boss, is none other than… Yasmina Khadra, himself. Navelism? Worse. Curiously, Ed Dayem, who is not an example of rectitude and good behavior, attacks Jha and lectures him. Jha is accused of overseeing "a vast network of obscure scribblers, depressed journalists and sworn detractors".

The reader, who is not aware of this story of plagiarism, is completely lost. Hence the unpleasant impression that the whole novel was "woven" with the dramatically simple idea of ​​taking revenge, of placing one, of having the last word. Ed Dayem asks the question: “And you, what is your main objective in defaming our great writer? " Do you have an answer ? Lines from comic books, plots from bad detective series, images from third-rate commercial films, fat moralizing speech, words that fly like night owls, Yasmina Khadra got lost in the settings of her own novel. and has tragically confused literary aesthetics and "writings" of the boulevards.

Bitterness

Qu'attend les singes does not have the freshness and tone of Yasmina Khadra's early thrillers like Morituri. Yasmina Khadra, who failed to collect 60,000 signatures from Algerians to stand as a presidential candidate in April 2014, despite the numerous translations of her books around the world, cultivates an astonishing self-hatred, drowns in a lake of bitterness sinks on the slab of arrogance. A dry passage from his latest novel is enough to illustrate this psychological attitude: “It's true that in the country we no longer know how to dress, but in recent years people have been exaggerating. We drag sandals all day long, we wear kamis from Friday to Friday and we go to funerals in jogging. “Hard to believe that Yasmina Khadra is a “good” clothing consultant! Fashion literature might be a healthy path for him, who knows? You just need to know the fabrics…

Faisal Metaoui