Harraga (29 page)

My child

My love

My heart, my life

Like your mother, my daughter

We two will be
harragas.

Written in Rampe Valée, in 2002,

in the house of the Good Lord

(for that is now its name).

A Note on the Author

Boualem Sansal (b. 1949) is the author of six novels and various other books. His first novel
Le Serment des barbares
(
The Barbarians’ Oath
) won the 1999 Prix du Premier Roman. In 2003 he was dismissed from the civil service for criticising the Algerian government. Since the publication in 2006 of
Poste restante: Alger. Lettre de colère et d’espoir à mes compatriotes
(
Poste restante: Letter of anger and hope to my compatriots
) his books have been banned in his own country. Today he is considered not only one of Algeria’s most important writers, but also a literary figure of international stature.
Le Village de l’allemand
(translated into English as
The German Mujahid
) won France’s Grand Prix RTL LIRE 2008 and Belgium’s Grand Prix de la Francophonie 2008. In 2011 he was awarded the German Booksellers’ Peace Prize and in 2012 the Prix du Roman Arabe, but this prize money was withdrawn, despite protests from the jury, following his visit to Israel to speak at the Jerusalem Writers Festival. He lives in Boumerdès, near Algiers, with his wife.

By the Same Author

The German Mujahid

A Note on the Translator

Frank Wynne has won three major prizes for his translations from the French, including the 2002 IMPAC for
Atomised
by Michel Houellebecq and the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for
Windows on the World
by Frederic Beigbeder. He is also the translator from the Spanish of Tomás Eloy Martínez’s
Purgatory
, Miguel Figueras’s
Kamchatka
and Carlos Acosta’s
Pig’s Foot
. In 2014 he was awarded the Valle Inclán Prize for his translation of Alonso Cueto’s
The Blue Hour
.

Copyright © 2005 Éditions Gallimard
English translation copyright 2014 by Frank Wynne
First published in France by Éditions Gallimard

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This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s Writers in Translation program supported by Bloomberg and Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and its understanding, uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and promote the friendly cooperation of writers and free exchange of ideas.
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eISBN: 978-1-62040-226-9

 
First published in the United States in 2015
This electronic edition published in January 2015

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