Read also: The beginning of the Black Decade in Algeria; Halida Boughriet, L’Europeista

The writer Kamel Daoud and his wife Aicha are subject to two international arrest warrants, both issued in 2025 by the Algerian state following as many complaints from a single law firm in Algiers.

The first is based on an accusation by a woman, Saada Arbane, that the novel Houris (2024, Gallimard) was based on stories she had told in psychotherapy sessions with Daoud’s partner, later to become his wife. In a television interview, Arbane claimed that she had never given consent for the use of her story; after publication, she decided to sue both of them for violation of professional secrecy. The writer, for his part, denies everything.

The second refers to an alleged ‘instrumentalisation of a national tragedy’, an offence introduced in the Algerian penal code in 2005 following the peace agreements between the state and the Islamic Front for Salvation (FIS), which were supposed to put an end to more than ten years of civil war – or rather, war against civilians, since the people were suffering oppression from both sides. Lawyer Fatima Benbraham was supposedly mandated by an association of victims of terrorism by virtue of the fact that by law one must not talk about such matters.

The ‘Black Decade’ and its roots

It is legitimate to doubt these accusations, because this is the first time such an offence has been charged outside of politics. Certainly, however, Houris deals without mitigation with the violence, torture and massacres that occurred during the so-called Black Decade – mutatis mutandis, the Algerian Years of Lead – between 1991 and 2002.

In short, after independence from France in 1962, Algeria became a one-party dictatorship of a national-territorial brand, characterised by centralised and despotic power. The economy rested almost solely on the export of hydrocarbons, managed by state-owned companies in harmony with French interests, and there was no free enterprise, as the state pursued a Soviet socialist model.

From there it had also imported unlimited corruption, the absence of the rule of law and the inability of citizens to participate in public life, as well as arms and KGB training for the apparatus. This precarious balance broke down in the second half of the 1980s, when oil prices fell and public finances suffered: deteriorating living conditions were followed by street demonstrations.

It ended badly: in the uprisings of October 1988, Chadli Ben Jedid ‘s regime killed hundreds of people. Increasingly under pressure, the state initiated reforms with multi-party elections. The administrative elections of 1990 and the first round in 1991 rewarded the FIS, a movement adept at exploiting religion and local clan dynamics.

Rather than concede power, the regime outlawed it in a coup d’état: a war followed with hundreds of thousands dead and missing.

State-imposed oblivion

This affair is little known because there were never any bicameral commissions, journalistic reports, historiographical work or court rulings: reconciliation was based onimpunity.

Responsibilities were only attributed in a personal capacity, while the state imposed a real oblivion by law: one had to forget. The material and moral damage was ignored; it was neither possible to speak publicly about it nor to prosecute the crimes.

Houris: a novel under indictment

This is why the second term hangs over Daoud’s head. The story of Houris is told from the point of view of a woman who survived the rape and extermination of her family during the attack on the village of Had Chekala in January 1998.

Disabled but saved, she is adopted, studies and builds a new life. However, subsequent events lead her to reflect on the tragedy in a monologue that becomes an indictment of a repressive, macho society obsessed with religious precepts.

It is not pure fiction: Daoud admitted that he reworked stories he had collected as a journalist. Whether the novel broke the law will be determined by the judges – with what impartiality, remains an open question.

Art versus censorship: a memory that resists

The arts world has repeatedly tried to force the limits imposed, paying a heavy price: in 1994, Chebb Hasni, Tahar Djaout and Ahmed Asselah were murdered.

Among the most active artists is Zineb Sedira, who has collected satirical cartoons from the press of the time, published in A personal collection of jokes (2018).

Photojournalist Ammar Bouras, author of images depicting daily life during the conflict, collected in the volume 1990_1995 Algérie, chronique photographique (2019), also stands out.

Visual archives against forgetting

Another fundamental contribution is that of Sofiane Zouggar, who collects testimonies and transforms them into anonymous visual archives, protecting the identity of the protagonists.

His work restores a plural memory: for some images of security, for others of terror. In any case, an act of resistance againststate oblivion.

Symbols and denunciation in contemporary arts

Among the most significant works is Halida Boughriet‘s Sudarium (1999), a monochrome Algerian flag that becomes a symbol of the invisible victims.

Djamel Tatah, on the other hand, with Women of Algiers represents female figures who demand truth and justice, denouncing the persistence of oppression.

The Benfodil scandal

In 2011, Mustapha Benfodil ‘s work Ecritures sauvages caused a scandal at the Sharjah Biennial: installation removed, director fired.

The headless dummies and provocative texts denounced socio-political violence and war rape, showing how language itself could become a weapon.

Art, memory and conflict

At this point the question is inevitable: is it a sign of cultural health when art takes to the streets and tells what cannot be told?

While it is impossible to deny tragedies, there are many ways of recounting them – all legitimate and necessary. The Daoud affair shows a growing willingness to confront evil directly.

As Rym Khene wrote, ‘national reconciliation’ imposed from above reconciles neither perpetrators nor victims.

And when journalism, politics and the judiciary cannot act, only one space remains: that of the arts, the last bastion of memory and truth.