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The Meursault Investigation
December 15, 20157:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In French, with simultaneous translation into Spanish.
Due to an unfortunate (minor) accident suffered by author Kamel Daoud, this actividad has been cancelled until further notice.
Casa Árabe and the Almuzara publishing firm are presenting the Spanish-language version of this work by Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, Year 2015 winner of the Goncourt Prize for a First Novel.
The event will include attendance by the author himself, Kamel Daoud, who will be accompanied by the book’s publisher, Manuel Pimentel, and the General Director of Casa Árabe, Pedro Villena.
This novel is both an homage to and confrontation with The Stranger, the famous work by Albert Camus. Through a dizzying interplay of real and fictitious mirrors, Daoud reflects on identity within a post-colonial reality. It is a profound novel about the legacies which condition our present and the extraordinary power of literature to construct and de-construct realities which we believe to be unquestionable. Kamel Daoud, known for his biting articles in the Algerian and international press, leads his readers into a virtuous formal abyss, in which the reality and fiction of the characters, prophets and history are confused. He even deliberately creates a fusion of Meursault, the main character of The Stranger, and Albert Camus himself, author of the novel.
Daoud’s novel has been awarded with the Goncourt Prize of 2015 for a First Novel, which gives acknowledgment to the finest literary debut in France.
Kamel Daoud
Born in Mostaganem (300 km west of Algiers) in 1970, Daoud currently lives in Oran. He is a journalist for the Quotidien d’Oran, the number three French national daily in Algeria and the daily newspaper with the most readers in the country. His articles are also published in the French press (Libération, Le Monde, Courrier International, etc.). He is the author of La Préface du nègre, awarded with the Mohammed Dib Prize for best book of short stories in 2008. In 2014, his first novel was published, Meursault, contre-enquête (The Meursault Investigation), by the Barzaj publishing firm in Algeria and Actes Sud in France. With it he has earned many awards and one huge success: in France alone it sold more than 150,000 copies. The work has now been translated in 22 countries, now including Spain, by the Almuzara publishing firm.
The event will include attendance by the author himself, Kamel Daoud, who will be accompanied by the book’s publisher, Manuel Pimentel, and the General Director of Casa Árabe, Pedro Villena.
This novel is both an homage to and confrontation with The Stranger, the famous work by Albert Camus. Through a dizzying interplay of real and fictitious mirrors, Daoud reflects on identity within a post-colonial reality. It is a profound novel about the legacies which condition our present and the extraordinary power of literature to construct and de-construct realities which we believe to be unquestionable. Kamel Daoud, known for his biting articles in the Algerian and international press, leads his readers into a virtuous formal abyss, in which the reality and fiction of the characters, prophets and history are confused. He even deliberately creates a fusion of Meursault, the main character of The Stranger, and Albert Camus himself, author of the novel.
Daoud’s novel has been awarded with the Goncourt Prize of 2015 for a First Novel, which gives acknowledgment to the finest literary debut in France.
Kamel Daoud
Born in Mostaganem (300 km west of Algiers) in 1970, Daoud currently lives in Oran. He is a journalist for the Quotidien d’Oran, the number three French national daily in Algeria and the daily newspaper with the most readers in the country. His articles are also published in the French press (Libération, Le Monde, Courrier International, etc.). He is the author of La Préface du nègre, awarded with the Mohammed Dib Prize for best book of short stories in 2008. In 2014, his first novel was published, Meursault, contre-enquête (The Meursault Investigation), by the Barzaj publishing firm in Algeria and Actes Sud in France. With it he has earned many awards and one huge success: in France alone it sold more than 150,000 copies. The work has now been translated in 22 countries, now including Spain, by the Almuzara publishing firm.
Casa Árabe
Almuzara publishing firm