The heatwave continues, and I spent some time in the garden reading A Bookshop in Algiers (2017) by Kaouther Adimi. It was originally published as Nos richesses and translated by Chris Andrews as Our Riches, so I’m not sure why the title changed when it appeared in the UK – but I have to admit that ‘bookshop’ in the title is what made me pick it up in a secondhand bookshop a few years ago. So perhaps the marketing folk know what they’re doing.
The novella is about Edmond Charlot, a publisher and bookseller in Algiers, Algeria. As I kept reading the book, and seeing so many real French authors, I began to wonder if Charlot were a real person… and of course he is. Which does raise the issue of novels about real people – particular in Adimi’s case, where she tells his story through diary entries. Making up a real person’s diary is a minefield, but I went along for the ride. Perhaps it helps that the entries are so short.
Through Charlot’s perspective, we see his ambition to open up a bookshop and cultural meeting point in Algiers, called Les Vraies Richesses, and to start publishing some of the greatest names in French literature. He is apparently best known for his working relationship with Albert Camus, and there were other names that I recognised – Giono, Vercors, Gide, Saint-Exupéry – as well as many that are doubtless familiar to people with a better knowledge of Francophone literature than I. He appears to have spent some time in prison, thanks to Gertrude Stein…
March 17, 1942
Just out of prison. A month inside! Thanks to Gertrude Stein who had the bright idea of declaring, in an interview with the BBC: “I have a very dynamic publisher in Algiers, who is resisting…” Vichy already had me under surveillance. Three days after the book was printed, the police came for me in the small hours of the morning.
[…]
This unfortunate episode has held up the publication of Gerturde Stein’s book, but the store stayed open, thanks to Manon and other friends. it’s clearer than ever to me that without friendship there could be no Éditions Charlot. It all depends, essentially, on circumstances, friendship, and encounters.
Before each section of diary entries, there is a page or two summarising the state of Algeria in the time period – from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Now, if I am ignorant about French writing, that’s nothing to my ignorance about the geopolitics of Algeria through the 20th century. In Adimi’s hands, I feel like I’ve had a quick but first-class education. She wears her knowledge and research lightly, and perhaps it’s because we see all these famous names and big events through the eyes of one individual, who is as preoccupied with rude letters and paper shortages as he is with the world stage. Later in the novella, there is an astonishing section on a brutal episode I had never heard of – the massacre of Algerians in Paris in 1961, by police. It is related with a fierce poeticism, and is incredibly striking.
The parallel story is in 2017. Through a friend of his father’s, a young man called Ryad is hired to throw away everything left in Les Vraies Richesses, paint the walls, and get it ready to be turned into a shop selling beignets. Though it hasn’t been a bookshop for years, it is still a members’ library, and its final custodian, Abdullah, is living next door. Ryad doesn’t like books at all – the idea of print reminds him of mites – and he is not at all uneasy about his task. But he finds the community are friendly but unhelpful. There is allegedly no paint to be bought in the whole region.
Over his time there, Ryad gets to know Adbullah and other locals. Adimi is too subtle to make him have a Damascan Road turn towards literature, but there is a subtle transformation to him nonetheless. Perhaps it’s because of my well-documented suspicion of historical fiction, but it was the contemporary Ryad scenes that I most enjoyed. He is not your usual literary hero, but I warmed to him and his gradual development.
Despite, as I say, not loving historical fiction, and despite some queries about making up the diaries of a real person – I did really enjoy reading A Bookshop in Algiers. It is quietly powerful about the abuse faced by Algerians over the years, as well as a fascinating insight into a literary circle and the resilience of people who simply love literature. It is not a sentimental book, and it is all the better for that. A lovely way to spend a sunny evening, and perhaps the beginnings of an education about a country and culture I know very little about.