Description
Fiction. African & African American Studies. "If you speak, you die, and if you remain silent, you die. So, speak and die."—Tahar Djaout
Algeria, just after Independence. The inhabitants of a small Kabylian village go in search for the remains of their fighters who, during the war of liberation, fell here, there, and everywhere. They want to bury them a second time, at home, where they belong. Accompanied by a relative, an adolescent joins the "bone seekers" in search of his older brother's remains. It is the first time the boy has left his village, and he will stumble upon a new universe. But why retrieve his brother's bones when he can't even be sure they are really his? Why bury them in the village that his brother hated so much when he was alive? What is the quest for but to reassure the survivors, so they can be rid of their own specters? When the mission is over and he returns to his people with his macabre burden, the journey has transformed him.
"A mix of seriousness and irony that sets the tone for a bitter denunciation."—La Dépêche de Kabylie
Author Bio
Born in Oulkhou, a small village in the Kabylie region, in 1954, Tahar Djaout studied at Algiers University, becoming fluent in Berber, Arabic and French (his preferred language for writing). He worked as a journalist and later editor-in-chief for the French language paper Algérie- Actualité and published four acclaimed novels including Les Chercheurs d'os (THE BONE SEEKERS) and Les Vigiles, which was awarded the Prix Mediterranée. In 1993 he was assassinated by the Armed Islamic Group, one of the attackers confessing that he was murdered because he "...wielded a fearsome pen."
Author City: ALGIERS ALG