A Lannan Translation Selection: Funding the translation and publication of exceptional literary works
Nine-year-old Jallal is old enough to know that his life in Algeria
is precarious at best—friends are as likely to kill you as save you.
Having run away from home, he lives by selling peanuts and single
cigarettes on the street. The proposal by the elderly Swiss woman
named Anna is shocking and preposterous: travel with her through
war-ravaged lands, as a translator, so she can find her lost husband
and pray over the graves of their murdered children. To Anna, however,
the risk is no less than when they first met in Algeria during yet
another time of unspeakable terror decades ago.
As Anna and her lover, battered by time and memory, circle each other, Benmalek
asks what of humanity endures in dangerously lawless times. The Lovers of Algeria
is an unflinching novel that resonates powerfully in today's world.
