When Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote The Meursault Investigation, a mesmerizing sequel to Albert Camus's The Stranger, few might have guessed it would cause him so much trouble. The New York Times reported that a radical Islamist preacher in Algeria issued a fatwa (on Facebook) against Daoud and his book for the "war he is leading against God and the prophet." Despite this attack, the book has gone on to garner wide critical acclaim internationally and win prizes, including the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman. The novel is now available to English-language readers, thanks to John Cullen's accomplished translation.
In Camus's tale, his anti-hero, Meursault, shoots and kills a nameless Arab on a beach. Daoud gives him a name--Musa--and imagines he is the brother of The Meursault Investigation's narrator, Harun. Daoud picks up the story 70 years later. Playing off the opening line of The Stranger (Meursault says, "Mother died today"), Daoud's novel begins with, "Mama's still alive today."
Harun is in a bar telling his story to another customer, but it's as if he's talking to the reader. He says it's "no normal story... you're like everyone else, you've read the tale as told by the man [Camus] who wrote it. He writes so well." Daoud also writes a shooting into his book, but with vastly different results. At the heart of Harun's meditative personal account is his religion and his country's anguished chronicle of colonialism and finally independence from France. Daoud's unusual, plaintive exploration of literature and history results in a thoughtful and illuminating book. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher