CW: this book contains mentions of police brutality, violence and discrimination.

A Bookshop in Algiers is a quiet little book that manages to pack in quite a lot, offering a snapshot of Algerian history, the rich life of bookseller and publisher Edmond Charlot, and a powerful celebration of books all in one.

I had actually never heard of Edmond Charlot before picking up this book, and I was rather surprised to discover that he had worked closely and published books by so many well-known authors, chief among them Albert Camus. It really got me thinking about easy it is for someone's work to be forgotten and their contributions ignored, and how many more "Charlots" are out there that I have never known before. I love learning something new and being challenged by books, so in this A Bookshop in Algiers really hit the mark!

The narration was also interesting, as different chapters alternated excerpts from Charlot's (fictional) diary, snapshots of Algerian history, and young Ryad's work emptying the bookshop in modern Algeria. It took me a moment to get used to this format, but I soon got into it and really appreciated the extra depth it added without weighing down the book. The chapters on Algerian history, which were narrated in first person plural, were particularly interesting to me. I broadly knew of some of the events mentioned, but seeing them through the eyes of the Algerian people (which is who I interpreted to be the narrating "we") was completely new. The accounts of oppression and violence also took on special significance when read now, when so many similar conversations are happening in relation to other peoples (especially Palestinians).

It was also interesting to read about Charlot's experiences in publishing. I've never worked in the sector myself, so it was fascinating to read about everything that went on in the production of a book. Charlot himself was really compelling, a dreamer par excellence, and I really admired his perseverance and his ability to give the world so much despite facing so many difficulties. There was quite a lot of name dropping though and, with my limited knowledge of French authors, I actually struggled to keep up with everyone's names most of the time.

It's hard to go wrong with a book about books, and A Bookshop in Algiers is no exception. Masterfully bringing together the power of knowledge, the beauty of literature and books, and the importance of fighting for your dreams and your freedom, this is sure to appeal to lovers of history, historical fiction and literature, and all those who like to discover hidden little gems.

For this and more reviews, visit Book for Thought.

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )

Picked it up on a whim on vacation, so glad that I did. It wasn't at all what I thought it would be, it is so much more. Highly recommend. ( )

The title and cover of this book suggest that this is a feel-good novel, but actually it isn't. It's interesting what marketing did to this novel, called 'Nos richesses' in the original French, and 'Our riches' in the first English edition. Perhaps such a title does not sell well enough? 'Nos richesses' was written by the Algerian writer Kaouther Adimi (1986). Adimi has been living and working in France since 2009. She has by now published 5 novels, of which only 'Nos richesses' has been translated into English. She has already won several literary prizes in France.

The bookshop from the English title is called 'Les Vraies Richesses' and was founded in the 1930s, by Edmond Charlot, an Algeria-born Frenchman. Charlot really existed, just like his shop. Charlot's little bookshop was much more than a place to buy books, it was also a library, a publishing house and a meeting place for young writers. The most famous visitor, in retrospect, was young Albert Camus. Charlot is now best known as 'the discoverer of Camus'. After reading this book, you know that this actually falls short of Charlot.

The story is told in 3 storylines. There are the (fictional) diary fragments of Edmond Charlot, from the period he started his shop until 1961. These are eventful years for the shop and the publishing house, with great successes, but also major financial problems. And with the Second World War and the Algerian struggle for independence playing in the background. The reader is taken through this period with the help of diary fragments. Without background knowledge it is difficult to follow this history properly though. Looking up additional information helps a lot.

In a second storyline, we follow Ryad, a student who has to clear out Charlot's former bookshop as an internship assignment in 2017. The new owner wants to start a beignet shop there. Charlot is no longer alive by then, and the bookshop had not been in his possession since 1947, but it has always remained a bookish place (bookshop, library). That is, until Ryad arrives. In a third storyline, the local residents in Algiers address the reader directly and speak shame of the new owner's plans. They regret that the young generation forgets history so quickly.

In terms of writing style, this book reminded me a bit of Heritage, by Miguel Bonnefoy, who also wrote an extensive story using very few words. The problem with that style is that it makes it difficult to empathize with the main characters. And in the end, as a reader, you have to look up so much extra information that reading this fairly thin book takes more time than expected. It's educational, that's for sure. The book is actually an ode to the history of Algeria. A history that harbors riches that most readers will know little about. Not only foreign readers, but even, and that is perhaps the most important message of the story, the Algerians themselves. ( )

I wanted to like this more than I did. Given the rich history the author was dealing with, it often felt rather flat. Not that it was uninteresting, I did feel engaged, but also like I was reading a report rather than a novel. I think the difficulty for me was that I wanted the present-day character, Ryad, to come to an appreciation of the lives involved with the former bookshop he was clearing out, and the literary significance of the shop and its owner, Edmond Charlot, not just for Algeria and France but globally, but he didn't. Albert Camus worked there and had his first works published through the bookshop, but Ryad seems unmoved by this and other literary and historical events. Perhaps Adimi intended the reader to be the one going through that journey, but viewed through the perspective of a character who seemingly couldn't give a shit, I found it difficult to feel enthused by the back story told through the fictionalised journal entries of Charlot.

The sections on the French colonial oppression of Algeria, the betrayal of promises made by the "Mother Country" to enlist Algerians into the French WWII effort, and the subsequent massacres of Algerians in the French colony and in Paris during the'50s and '60s were the most interesting parts for me. I wish the sections about the bookshop in Algiers had interested me as much. ( )

Apparently I was in the mood to challenge myself when I went to the library. I’ve moved now from South Africa to North, to Algeria, and again find myself waffling between 4. and 4.5 stars.

Translated from the French, the writing via translation is beautiful, or, at least, beautifully engaging. The story is divided into flashbacks in the form of journal entries, written by the Edmund Charlot, the original owner of the Les Vraies Richesses (the Bookstore at the center of the story), a present-day timeline told in the third person, and a third that I don’t know how to describe; something akin to a transitional voice-over; NPR calls it a communal third person.

Over the course of this small book, the reader travels with Algeria and the bookstore through pre-war French colonialism, WWII, and Algeria’s war for independence, coming out into the present day in a city that feels like it’s in stasis (although there are early references to the economy suffering because Algeria’s oil reserves have dried up), and the people are holding their breath, waiting to see what happens next. Edmund Charlot comes across and a wonderful man; kind, generous, and someone who followed a vocation rather than a profession, and while I worried about his naiveté at the start of his career, and felt for him when things were so impossible in post-war Paris, I mourned with him at the senseless destruction that ultimately took him out of Algeria.

I ended up going with 4 stars because the ending did my head in. I really feel like I got a taste of Algiers, and I definitely felt Abdallah’s pain as the bookstore was slowly dismantled with so little feeling by the young intern, Ryad, sent to “throw everything away”. But the end … the end left me flipping pages and saying “what the hell?” to myself. I really want to be able to ask the author to explain herself. What was her motivation with this ending? Or perhaps I missed some nuance, some metaphor; perhaps I took the ending too literally. Either way, it was abrupt.

In spite of this, the book is the kind that will stay with me for some time to come, and I’ll “see” it in my memory as if it was something I experienced, rather than just read. I just have to forget about that ending. ( )