Memory in The Flesh

by Ahlam Mosteghanemi

This prize-winning novel, the first to be written by an Algerian woman in Arabic, is set against Algeria's struggle against foreign domination as well as its post-independence struggle with itself and the fate of revolutionary ideals in a post-revolutionary society. The story, spanning more than four decades of Algerian history, from the 1940s to the 1980s, revolves around a love affair between Khaled, the middle-aged militant who turns to painting after losing his left arm in the struggle, and Hayat, the fiction writer and young daughter of his friend the freedom fighter Si Taher, all brilliantly told through Khaled's voice. It was features such as this convincing embodiment of a male voice alongside narrative techniques in which the author subtly joins the achievements of world literature with that of local storytelling and traditional modes of narration that particularly impressed the judges who awarded this novel the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.