French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud said on Wednesday that he has been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison by an Algerian court over his novel Houris, an award-winning work centered on the country’s civil war.
The writer, who resides in France, announced that the verdict was issued on Tuesday, adding that he was also fined 5 million Algerian dinars (around $38,000). The ruling was handed down by a court in the western city of Oran.
Daoud’s novel Houris, which won the Prix Goncourt in 2024, focuses on victims of Algeria’s so-called “black decade,” the violent conflict of the 1990s that followed the cancellation of legislative elections after an Islamist electoral victory.
According to Daoud, his conviction is based on provisions of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a law adopted in 2005 aimed at closing the chapter on the civil war through broad amnesties for both armed groups and state forces.
The author criticized the law, saying it effectively criminalizes public discussion of the conflict. He described the verdict as targeting a writer for addressing a period that left tens of thousands dead.
The case also intersects with a personal legal dispute. An Algerian woman, Saâda Arbane, has accused Daoud of using elements of her life story without consent as the basis for the novel’s central character, a young survivor of a terrorist attack.
Arbane said she repeatedly refused permission for her story to be used, describing the publication as a violation of her privacy. Her claims have been supported by a collective of lawyers, who have invoked the same reconciliation charter in their legal arguments.
The controversy extends beyond the domestic ruling. Daoud is also subject to two international arrest warrants issued by Algerian authorities in May 2025 and faces the possibility of losing his Algerian nationality.
The case echoes that of Boualem Sansal, another prominent Franco-Algerian author who has faced legal action in Algeria over his writings. Sansal was previously sentenced to prison on charges related to undermining national unity before being granted a humanitarian pardon and returning to France.
Daoud’s sentencing highlights ongoing tensions in Algeria over how the civil war is remembered and discussed, particularly as legal frameworks continue to restrict public engagement with one of the country’s most traumatic periods.
