Algerian Novelist Mohamed Sari: Publishers Have Become Brokers Between the Writer and the Printer

The Algerian novelist, critic, and translator, Mohamed Sari, who has more than 60 works, spoke in an interview with "Al Arabiya.net" about the reality of literature in Algeria, ahead of the opening of the International Book Fair 2026. He also addressed the issue of languages that has sparked controversy in Algeria, the reality of translation, and the act of reading, in addition to discussing details of the literary event he will attend titled 'New'.

Mohamed Sari: The issue of languages in Algeria has been a reality since the country gained independence in 1962. After nearly a century and a half of French colonization, during which the latter did everything possible to erase the Arabic language from all official uses, it was very natural for the Algerian government and part of the elite to rush to declare Arabic as a national and official language enshrined in the constitution. However, the language prevalent in administration, education, and various sectors is French, and it remained so for many years. Nevertheless, the Algerian state has made efforts to Arabize vital sectors such as education, justice, and defense, restoring the status of the Arabic language. However, French remained dominant, especially in administration and higher education in scientific disciplines such as medicine and technical schools. French continued to be the first foreign language without competition, even though English is also taught, but starting from the intermediate educational level. However, the emergence of the internet, digitization, and the new generation that resorted to English as an alternative due to its widespread use and ease of access to its sources through the Anglo-Saxon websites spread across the world has caused a major upheaval in the dominance of the French language, leading the Ministry of Education to reconsider the status of the first foreign language, favoring English, which was introduced in the third grade of primary school, while French was postponed to the fourth grade. This decision was aided by political circumstances and Algeria's relationship with France, in addition to the repercussions of the contentious memory file, especially the colonial crimes that France refuses to acknowledge, even from a moral responsibility standpoint. The debate intensified, and many voices advocating for the preference of English as the language of globalization called for the eradication of the French language from all Algerian sectors. However, the matter is not that simple. Algerian culture carries a national heritage in the French language at all political, historical, and literary levels. How do we deal with this heritage? Can it be erased with a stroke of a pen? What do we do with the hundreds, even thousands, of historical, literary, and even scientific references authored by Algerians whose national loyalty is beyond doubt, and which are a fundamental asset in shaping the contemporary Algerian identity? What about the numerous university faculty members who guide and teach thousands of students? Can the Algerian state replace them with faculty trained in English, by opening our universities to foreign English-speaking faculty as it did with Arabization, where it acted hastily without careful consideration, harming the Arabic language and the level of students who were Arabized by incompetent teachers, some of whom are Algerians forced to use Arabic while they do not master it, creating uneducational paradoxes, where the language of instruction became colloquial and a mixture of an Arabic-French vocabulary that disrupted the educational process and produced a terrible weakness in the linguistic level of students in Arabic, the negative results of which are still evident today. Do we want to repeat this process hastily and produce a generation that masters neither French nor English nor Arabic, to validate the sarcastic saying that Algerian students are trilingual illiterates: Analphabètes trilingues.

It is the bet of contemporary Algeria to find rational solutions to the language problem. How to restore the status of the Arabic language as the official language adopted in all institutions and at all levels, and I see it as a necessary and urgent matter, because development occurs first and foremost in the national language. The matter is not easy, as the reality of the Arabic language does not concern Algeria alone; we share this unsatisfactory reality with all Arab countries, and I do not think that Arabic is in good shape in all these countries.

On the other hand, since we, even temporarily, cannot allow the Arabic language to play its full role in human and scientific development, resorting to a foreign language is necessary and unavoidable. If the countries of the Arab East have settled the contemporary history by choosing their foreign language represented by English, the situation is not the same for Algeria and the Maghreb region, which has a significant heritage in the French language that cannot be easily disregarded, like the crow that wanted to imitate the walk of the partridge, neither learning its walk nor maintaining its own, as the popular tale says. Therefore, those responsible for the linguistic fate in Algeria must be very careful before making urgent decisions that may lose what remains of our means of openness to the world. Regardless, the French language, contrary to what many impulsive and unstudied individuals claim, remains a global language from which we can learn a lot, especially what it translates from other languages such as English and German. Most of what our students read in medical sciences is translated from English and from very recent books (I have personally observed this while following the textbooks of my children, who are now specialized doctors, in addition to the books they read directly in English). My opinion is that we should preserve our heritage in the French language and what this language offers in terms of translated global knowledge, without neglecting what the English language provides in terms of new developments, especially at higher educational levels.

The truth is that we cannot promote the Arabic language to meet all the cultural, scientific, and technical needs of society; we must only benefit from the two foreign languages, French and English, by adopting a realistic and solid educational policy, especially in education, by selecting well-trained teachers and curricula of a global standard. This solution excludes haste and urgent decisions, and Algeria knows the dire consequences of the Arabization policy pursued in the 1980s.

Indeed, translation can resolve all these issues, as European and Asian countries have done and continue to do, where they have adopted a comprehensive translation policy to educate their children in their language at the early levels of education, perhaps even until the early university years, before opening the door to a foreign language, which is mostly English, to continue educating their elites in a manner that aligns with globalization. This requires all Arab countries to open translation workshops in all fields of knowledge, with cooperation and joint work to avoid wasting efforts on translating the same work multiple times and individually. This is a waste of efforts. Coordination is essential.

It is true that this matter is far-fetched, and I do not see it being achieved in the near or medium term due to the accumulated obstacles in political, geographical, etc. fields... and other insurmountable barriers.

Nevertheless, the dream remains legitimate if we want to escape the inferiority that the Arab citizen feels towards their language, as the Arab student is constantly forced to resort to a foreign language to complete their education, even if it is not of a high standard.

The act of translation is weak, not only in Algeria but across the entire geography of the Arab world, from the Gulf to the Ocean. Let us refer only to the statistics published by international organizations responsible for books and translation, which state that all that the Arab countries collectively publish in terms of authored and translated books does not even reach what small European countries publish in terms of geography and demographics, and what they possess in financial and natural resources. The reasons are multiple and intertwined, and they primarily stem from economic backwardness and the low standard of living for the majority of the population, which explains the lack of reading due to its high cost and other known reasons that I have discussed in previous articles and interviews. One of the first solutions is to establish national and Arab centers for translation, which are provided with funds, freedom of choice, and unrestricted international communication. This could help promote translation to provide a larger number of books in all fields of knowledge for students in particular and for the general readership.

It is a matter that has imposed itself on a global level, as novels of various types have attracted readers more than other literary forms such as poetry and read theater (given that theater performed on stage is widespread in European countries, and in some Arab countries like Egypt, for example, which has a strong theater that is constantly attended by the audience, but it is presented in colloquial Arabic and not in classical Arabic except in some historical plays). Indeed, the novel has become the bride of all book fairs, both Arabic and international, and it is the bride of publishers who publish poetry only sparingly due to the lack of interest in it. This is very natural given what the novel offers the reader in terms of entertaining and enjoyable stories to read without much effort. Generally, it is in the nature of readers, with very few exceptions, to lean towards easy and entertaining reading that they spend their leisure time with, especially in an age of speed and the abundance of entertainment and time-passing means from social media, digitization, and television and cinema channels that offer films more enjoyable and entertaining than the novel itself.

However, regarding the Arabic novel, I believe it is a victim of its classical language in which it is written, as the general Arab population does not master reading it, unlike what happens in the West, where the difference between the written language and the spoken language is very minimal and hardly noticeable. The average citizen reads detective novels, adventure novels, science fiction, romance novels, and other various types because their language is easy, fluid, and based on concise narration of events and dialogues that do not differ from what this reader knows and hears in cafes and public and private places. Therefore, they have novels that sell in the millions and their authors are among the wealthy who live off the sales of their books, with a prominent example from Algeria being the writer Yasmina Khadra, who has thousands of readers, alongside very well-known international names such as Stephen King, Guillaume Musso, Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, and other celebrities.

So where do we stand in relation to these? I do not think that an Arabic writer can live off the revenues of their books. Once, Sun Allah Ibrahim stated that if it weren't for the revenues from his translated books, he would have starved. His Arabic fame is significant, but the sales of his books are very low, not providing him with enough for a decent living. Of course, some accuse publishers of exploiting the author and not granting them all their rights, with Naguib Mahfouz being one of the first to complain, as I read that he said Lebanese publishers, in particular, print thousands of his novels without him receiving a single pound. It was also mentioned once by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra that he has authored fifty-five books, and yet if it weren't for his salary as a university professor, he would be begging for his daily sustenance, clarifying that any writer in the West who has this number of books, both authored and translated, would certainly live off the revenues of their books.

Despite all these obstacles that induce despair, the Arab book salons, including the salon in Algeria, remain a time for joy and meeting, especially for writers and publishers. The Arab writer has become satisfied with the slightest resource: finding a publisher to publish and market their book, without asking for financial contribution towards the printing of the book, either partially or fully, as happens in many Arab countries, and also with many of the newly emerging publishers seeking quick profit, where these have turned into brokers between the writer and the printing house without providing the slightest service in reviewing the manuscript in terms of editing and linguistic proofreading.

It is a tragedy for the Arab novelist, especially for the beginners among them. Of course, I exclude here the respectable publishers, of whom there are many, who respect this profession and appreciate the texts presented to them, working to present them in the best possible form, despite the low readership and the difficulties of book distribution, whether in Algeria or in the Arab world. They are known among those interested in literary affairs and book publishing, so there is no need to mention names. I have dealt with them with great ease, and they accepted my manuscripts with open arms, published them, and promoted them.

The science fiction narrative emerged in Europe and America and formed a broad audience of readers. As for why it is excluded from high literature and referred to as marginal or side literature (paralittérature), there are several reasons. The first is that these novels do not work on literary and poetic language; they rely on straightforward language, and their main concern is to present the story and elements of suspense. They are primarily aimed at entertainment and lack human, existential, and philosophical depth, except in rare cases. They are similar to detective novels and adventure stories that I mentioned earlier. They do not present human life as it manifests among humans in general but rely on imagination and the extraordinary that is absolutely unattainable. Like extraordinary characters such as Superman and heroes who overcome all difficulties, the viewer and reader enjoy them without evoking any feelings of love or hatred. Once finished reading, they are discarded without a desire to return to them. This is why they are called station novels (romans de gare), enjoyed by readers while traveling on the train and neglected in their seating area upon departure. When you stroll through old bookshops in the streets of Paris, for example, you find them piled up, sold for cents to anyone who wants to acquire them, while you rarely find the literary works of famous authors except at high prices, especially if the editions are old and rare, turning them into museum pieces that specialized readers rush to acquire, even at their high price.

I have a new novel titled "The Wave on the Edge of the Valley of Forgetting," published by Dar Al-Ain in Cairo, the same publisher that previously published my two earlier novels, "Fires of the Valley of Eizer 2022" and "The Cube of the North and the Failed Time 2024." It will be present at the upcoming book fair in Algeria from October 28 to November 7, 2026, at the Dar Al-Ain booth.

The novel (Waves on the Bank of the Valley of Forgetfulness) is considered new in my narrative path, both in terms of content and form. While my previous novels were closely tied to the social and historical life of modern Algeria from a realistic perspective, as manifested in the narratives of modern Arabic novels of the twentieth century, whether in terms of classical plot or characters rooted in a social and political context of specific historical periods, as well as the descriptive style accompanying this realism, this new novel presents a theme that combines the current reality of a geographical and anthropological context that is fading with the years and technological development to the point of extinction, and a legendary past, closely linked to oral heritage, sometimes wrapped in sanctity and at other times reconsidering its historicity. The novel is built on alternating narratives and character presentations, in two seemingly different stories that parallel, complete, and ultimately converge. The time of the first story is elastic, diving into the lives of the characters, especially the first narrator who opens the narrative by returning to the roots, to tell us the legendary story of the grandfather, between what the various oral tales narrate and what the discovered manuscripts inside the grandfather's tomb, which is on the verge of collapse due to neglect and the preoccupations of his descendants who still carry his name but have been distanced from him by the concerns of new life, have recorded. The narrator focuses on deciphering the mysteries of those lines that are close to erasure, to unravel their letters that have been eaten away by insects and the yellowed pages. Thus, the stories are constructed and alternate; at one moment, the burden of the narrative is carried by the young Ali or Abdelkader, who immerses the reader in labyrinthine mazes, showcasing his narcissism, intelligence, and ability to compete with the ancestors in crafting a new narrative that does not completely erase the old but rather corrects it through distortion and forgery, accompanied by tales that he himself is puzzled about how and where to classify them, whether to include potential real events that the mind can accept or within modern myths that slip from ancient myths, boasting that he too is allowed to create his own myths, because writing, as he is engrossed in writing a new manuscript that relies on previous manuscripts but differs from them, as he firmly believes that the act of writing necessarily carries something new, and this newness will only come through change, even if it is forgery and distortion.

The second alternating story with the first is about two opposing hills, the Olive Hill and the Fig Hill, a geographical place that is gradually becoming legendary, and separating the two peaks is the Bouhniša Valley, also known as the Aizer Valley, as names vary and diversify for the same thing, like the narrator who carries two names, Ali and Abd al-Qadir. The valley was once abundant with water, fish, and nature that generously provided everything delicious and delightful, but it is no longer so due to the prolonged drought, which seems as if it will last forever and obliterate the signs of life within it. On each hill lives an elder, Sheikh Abd al-Qadir and Sheikh Suleiman, who are close to a common grandfather. Their sons separated long ago, living in enmity and estrangement that has lasted for a long time. They live in a time that seems to have come to a standstill, on barren land and under a scorching sky that refuses to bless them with rain, and the two sheikhs await a miracle that may come from the sea or from the valley that has turned into a sea in Sheikh Suleiman's eyes, where strange things occur that have tempted their sons to follow them. Perhaps the rain will come from the desert, where the roots of their grandfather, the righteous saint who has protected them for centuries, lie. But there is neither rain nor miracle, neither from the sea nor from the desert. Instead, natural disasters such as locust invasions and hungry wolves attacking them increase, and the drought and the lack of water from the wells and the valley lead to the outbreak of a war that may destroy what remains of the pulse of life on both banks of the valley and on the populated hills. Neither of the two sheikhs, each of whom is the head of a family of men, women, servants, vast lands, and herds of livestock, is working to improve or change their situation. They are content to observe each other and dream of beautiful days without leaving their place.

Other stories intertwine, like the amazing tale of Ali, who insists as if it were an undeniable truth that he remembers the day of his birth and what he saw on that rainy day, and the harsh stages of his childhood and his remarkable memory that allows him to memorize verses from hearing them just once, as well as the story of his father named Ali the Wolf due to a strange incident that occurred to him with a wolf, or a wolf cub, which shook the villagers and the incident echoed on their lips for years. However, the strange story is uniquely attributed to his grandfather named Sidi Abd al-Qadir al-Sba'i because he killed a beast to save a village from destruction, and he only left his distant village because he saw in his dream, as prophets do, a strange vision that led to his migration and the beginning of his amazing travels.

Finally, destruction and ruin come, and there remains for the narrator, who has dedicated himself to writing a manuscript to immortalize the memory of the sacred valley that will turn into a sea, nothing but to record what his memory has allowed him to retain, even if this memory has also been damaged, just as the strange deterioration has affected the letters of the manuscript, which have also begun to fade, making the difficulty of recording almost impossible.

The novel (The Undulation on the Bank of the Valley of Oblivion) is indeed an undulation that takes the reader through worlds that combine the real and the imagined, through two alternating stories that diverge and converge, and fertilize each other through pivotal stations, allowing the narrative to continue in a process of seduction and amazement through a narrative style and descriptive language, sticking to the embodied things, and alluding to those things, leaving them to soar in dreamy spaces at times, and nightmarish illusions at other times.

It is indeed a completely new novel in every sense of the word in my narrative paths.