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I chose a novel that was written by a woman who was born and brought up in Algeria but currently lives in France, is in fact both French and Algerian. Borders are fluid, in the sense that people move, emigrate, work in countries other than their own and reading a novel from every country quickly makes that apparent.
All Men Want to Know by Nina Bouraoui is described in the blurb on the back cover as a "work of auto fiction" that spans a childhood in Algiers and her teens where she "spends each night in a legendary gay nightclub." It was interesting and gave an insight into Algiers that is probably better understood if you also have a broad insight into attitudes to homosexuality in the 1970s and 80s elsewhere. The format was punchy and demanded attention to piece together various timelines. My paperback was published by Penguin in 2021, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and first published in France in 2018.
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