Category: by Venetia Hamilton

• Literature on trial: Kamel Daoud’s role in breaking the silence around the Algerian War

  7–10 minutes

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  September 22, 2025

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  by Venetia Hamilton, Michaelmas 2025

  Can a writer give voice to the silenced without speaking over them? This question lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding Kamel Daoud’s Houris (2024), a brutal yet beautiful novel that has won France’s prestigious Goncourt Prize while triggering legal action and ethical outrage in Algeria. The book gives a harrowing account of the…