(Washington Post) Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is feted in France — and resented by many in his home country. It’s easy to see why.
Daoud won France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, for his first novel in 2013. But beyond his literary talents, he appeals to French sympathies by declaring that he is not particularly interested in apologies for colonialism or the violence used to try to suppress Algerian independence. He says colonialism has become little more than an excuse for Algeria to ignore its internal decay.
“As soon as you say anything, they tell you it’s the fault of colonization,” he said in an interview here. “If you say that’s not true, they tell you, ‘Well then, you are in favor of colonization.’ No. I am for the present. Now.”
Daoud reserves the bulk of his criticism for fellow Muslims.
