Welcome to Litsy!

Can you "enjoy" a book that takes as its subject the colonial oppression of a country, explores social narratives which can spin liberationists as either freedom fighters or terrorists, describes the state torture and extra-judicial executions of citizens, and examines government and media complicity in the fomenting of populist support for miscarriages of justice in the name of political expediency? Well, apparently you can when it's as ?

I'm hoping this fictionalised account of an episode in the Algerian War will hold my interest better than the book I've just bailed on. The cover blurb mentioning how the conflict was "hidden for so long, too long, behind euphemisms" makes me wonder if this is the French equivalent of the Westminster government's "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland which, had they been happening elsewhere, would have identified as a civil war.

This was an account of a European Algerian protester who set a bomb that would hurt no one to call attention to Algerian independence from France. Based upon a true person, this was a history I didn‘t know. Really well written novella that has a creative POV switching that I really liked. Highly recommend!

I‘ve finished this book assigned to me but because I‘ve agreed not to review it until this round of the BookTube Prize is done I will only make a neutral comment. This short novel takes many pages to get used to the writing style and some phrases are odd to Americans. Now on to the next assignment...

#Booktube

One of my three TBR piles. I honestly don‘t know when I will get the time to read them all but I hope I can make a dent in them really soon. 🤓

History is cruel.......
Nordmann continues: I'll write to the prime minister and try to contact the minister of justice, François Mitterrand. I promise we'll do everything we can to get you out of here.