Yasmina Khadra's top 3 books

It is curious the round trip that represents the pseudonym Yasmina Kadra in the world of literature. I say this because not so long ago that many women around the world adopted a male pseudonym to ensure a better general reception of their work. And yet, back in 1989, a Algerian writer as Mohammed Moulessehoul did the reverse operation.

In order to write while avoiding the limitations of her military performance and any other filters, this writer found in Yasmina Khadra that icon of a woman writer, capable of narrating freely, as few men of Moulessehoul's condition and environment could do.

And it is that Moulessehoul, or rather the writer released in the figure of Yasmina Khadra, he had so much to say once he was unloaded with heavy burdens and surrendered to creative freedom, that his bibliography ended up gaining with that authenticity that, curiously, some authors end up finding the parapet of another name.

Top 3 Recommended Novels by Yasmina Khadra

God does not live in Havana

Havana was a city where nothing seemed to change, except the people who came and went in the natural course of life. A city as anchored in the needles of time, as subject to the honeyed cadence of its traditional music. And there Juan Del Monte moved like a fish in water, with his everlasting concerts at the Buena Vista cafe.

Don Fuego, named for his ability to turn on the clientele with his sweet and deep voice, discovers one day that the city suddenly seems determined to change, to stop being always the same, to stop keeping time trapped between their houses colonial, its cellars canteens and its vehicles of the twentieth century. Everything happens slowly in Havana, even sadness and despair. Don Fuego is displaced to the streets, with no new opportunities to sing except for his new companions in misery. Until he meets Mayensi. Don Fuego knows he is old, more than ever now that he is disowned on the street.

But Mayensi is a young girl who awakens him from his lethargy caused by circumstances. The girl looks for an opportunity and he wants to help her. Juan del Monte feels his fire reborn again ... But Mayensi has its particular edges, the nooks where it houses the secrets of his wandering personality. She and Don Fuego will lead us through the cobbled streets of Havana, between the light of the Caribbean and the shadows of a Cuba in transition. A story of dreams and longings, of contrasts between the feeling of a vitalist music and the shadows of some inhabitants who drown their sadness under the clear blue waters of the ocean.

God does not live in Havana

Algiers Trilogy

Taking advantage of the final volume that concentrates the most controversial and valued works of the first Khadra, we also draw on the resource to point out this compendium as a unique work from the darkest shadows of Algiers in the 90s.

Because at that time Khadra signed while Commander Moulessehoul was in charge of writing these novels with black inspiration but that finally connected like no other plot in the world with the gloomy connections of power, fundamentalism and that kind of ultrareligious underworld capable of everything for maintain its ideological primacy, as all religion deals with doing in a society that is not yet free. Commissioner Llob will lead us through old streets and souks in search of criminals. Only his instinct and acid humor allow him to survive in his most direct encounters against walls raised with firm blocks of fear and hatred.

Algiers Trilogy

The dishonor of Sarah Ikker

It seems that the Algiers trilogy can also be extended to a current Morocco in which Khadra locates this new plot of his particular revision of the black genre extended to human and cultural aspects.

Because the happily married couple of Driss Ikker and Sarah (with a westernized name but the daughter of a Moroccan policeman) soon points to some kind of cloud that will destabilize everything. You just have to start after reading the title of the novel to assume it. A double, triple or countless outrage ends up being guessed as soon as we see Sarah tied to the bed. Driss discovers her with us readers in that compromised situation, but before he can become alert, he is attacked and beaten.

Everything ends badly, very badly. When Driss regains consciousness the worst has happened to Sarah's body and soul. And like any good lover, husband or even friend, the desire to avenge Sarah makes Driss's blood boil. His untimely persecution does not herald anything good that could alleviate, improve or fix what happened.

In fact, no revenge ever achieves it. Only this time everything can get worse, much worse, to the point of considering that the blame for everything could end up spilling onto the saddened and outraged husband. And we discover that with the strange complexity of the cultural, customary, religious and strangely human connotations, after all.

The dishonor of Sarah Ikker
5/5 - (11 votes)

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