Algerian novelist Mohamed Sari: Publishers have become brokers between the writer and the printing press

The Algerian novelist, critic, and translator, Mohamed Sari, who has more than 60 books, spoke in an interview with Al Arabiya.net about the reality of literature in Algeria, prior to the opening of the 2026 International Book Fair. He also addressed the problem of languages ​​that sparked controversy in Algeria, the reality of translation, and the act of reading, in addition to addressing the details of the literary event in which he will attend under a new title.

Mohamed Sari: The problem of languages ​​in Algeria has been a reality since the country’s independence in 1962. After nearly a century and a half of French colonialism, where the latter did the impossible to erase the Arabic language from all official uses, it was very natural for the reaction of the Algerian government and part of the elite to rush to declare the Arabic language a national and official language registered in the constitution. But the widespread language in administration, education, and various interests is French, and it has remained that way for many years. However, the Algerian state worked hard to Arabize vital interests such as education, justice, and defense, and restored respect to the Arabic language. However, French remained dominant, especially in administration and higher education in scientific specializations such as medicine and higher technical schools. The French language remained the first foreign language without a competitor, even if the English language was also taught, but starting from the intermediate educational level. However, the emergence of the Internet, digitization, and the new generation that resorted to the English language as an alternative to its spread and ease of access to its sources through Anglo-Saxon websites spread across the world caused a major shake-up in the dominance of the French language, which led the Ministry of Education to reconsider the rank of the first foreign language by preferring the English language, as it was included in the third year of primary school and the French language was delayed to the fourth year. What helped this decision was the political circumstances and Algeria’s relationship with France, in addition to the remnants of the thorny memory file, especially the colonial crimes that France refuses to acknowledge, even if only as a matter of moral responsibility. The debate increased, deepened, and many voices roseDefending the preference for English as the language of globalization, calling for the erasure of the French language from all Algerian interests. But the issue is not that easy. Algerian culture carries a national heritage in the French language and at all political, historical and literary levels. How do we deal with this legacy? Can it be erased with the stroke of a pen? What do we do with hundreds or even thousands of historical, literary and even scientific references written by Algerians whose patriotism no one doubts, which is an essential asset in the formation of the contemporary Algerian personality? What is the fate of the many university frameworks that train and teach thousands of students, and can the Algerian state compensate them with frameworks taught in the English language, by opening our universities with foreign, Anglicized frameworks, as it did with Arabization, where it dealt with ill-considered haste that harmed the Arabic language and the level of students who were Arabized at the hands of incompetent professors, and some of them were Algerians who were forced to use the Arabic language while they did not master it, which created non-educational paradoxes, as The language of instruction became colloquial and a mixture of Arabic-French dictionary, which mixed the educational process and produced a terrible weakness in the linguistic level of students in the Arabic language, the dire consequences of which continue to this day. Do we want to repeat the science with this urgency and produce a generation that does not master French, English, or Arabic, so that the sarcastic saying is true that Algerian students are semi-illiterates in all three languages: analphabètes trilingues?

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

On the other hand, since we cannot, even temporarily, play the Arabic language fully in human and scientific development, resorting to a foreign language is necessary and unavoidable. If the countries of the Arab Levant have decided in contemporary history to choose their foreign language represented by English, this is not the case with Algeria and the Maghreb region, which has a legacy in the French language that is not insignificant and cannot be easily neglected, like the crow that wanted to imitate the walk of a partridge, but it did not learn its walk and did not maintain its walk, as the popular story says. Therefore, those supervising the linguistic destiny in Algeria must think carefully before making hasty decisions that may lose what remains of our means of openness to the world. Whatever the case, the French language, contrary to what many impulsive people claim without thought, deliberation, or study, remains a global language and we can learn a lot from it, 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 modern books (I saw this myself while tracking the textbooks of my children who are now specialist doctors, in addition, of course, to the books they read directly in the English language). My opinion is that we preserve our heritage in the French language and the translated global knowledge that this language offers, without neglecting the developments that the English language offers, especially at the higher levels of education.

The truth is that it is not possible to upgrade the Arabic language to meet all of society’s cultural, scientific and technical requirements. All we have to do is benefit from the foreign languages ​​French and English by adopting a realistic and sober educational policy, especially in education by choosing well-trained professors and world-class curricula. This solution excludes haste and hasty decisions, and Algeria knows its dire consequences in the Arabization policy pursued in the 1980s.

Indeed, translation can put an end to all these problems, just as European and Asian countries have done and are doing, as they have adopted a comprehensive translation policy to teach their children in their language at the first levels of education and perhaps up to the first years of university, before opening the way for a foreign language, which is mostly English, for their elites to continue education and research that combines with globalization. This matter requires that all Arab countries open translation workshops in all fields of knowledge, with cooperation and joint work, so that the masses are not wasted in translating one work several times and individually. This is a waste of effort. Coordination is essential.

It is true that this matter is far from being achieved, and I do not see it being achieved at the near or medium level due to the accumulated obstacles in the political, geographical, etc. fields, and other obstacles that are difficult to overcome.

However, the dream remains legitimate if we want to get rid of the inferiority that the Arab citizen feels towards his language, and the Arab student is forced to resort permanently and continuously to the foreign language in order to complete his education, even if it is not of a high level.

The translation act is weak, not only at the level of Algeria, but throughout the entire geography of the Arab world, from the Gulf to the ocean. Let us just return to the statistics published by the international organizations in charge of books and translation, which say that all the books published by the Arab countries together in terms of authored and translated books do not even live up to what is published by European countries that are geographically and demographically small in size and the financial and natural resources they possess. The reasons are multiple and intertwined, and are primarily due to economic backwardness and the low standard of living of the majority of the population, which explains the lack of reading due to its high price and many other well-known reasons, which I have talked about in previous articles and interviews of mine. The first solution is to establish national and Arab translation centers, which will be given funds, freedom of choice, and freedom of international communication without restrictions. It may help to upgrade the translation to provide the largest number of books in all fields of knowledge for students in particular and for general readers.

It is something that has imposed itself on a global level, as the novel in its various types has begun to attract readers more than other literary genres such as poetry and read theater (this is because theater performed on the stage is widely spread in European countries, and in some Arab countries, such as Egypt, for example, which has a strong theater that is constantly frequented by the public, but it is presented in colloquial Arabic and not in classical except in some historical plays). In fact, the novel has become the bride of all book fairs, both Arab and international, and it is the bride of publishers who do not publish poetry except distilled due to the lack of demand for it. This is very natural because the novel provides the reader with entertaining and enjoyable stories to read without much effort. It is the nature of the reader in general, with very few exceptions, to tend toward easy, entertaining reading, with which he spends his free time, especially in the age of speed, the abundance of means of entertainment, and the passing of time through social media, digitalization, and television and movie channels that present films that are more enjoyable and entertaining than the novel itself.

But as for the Arabic novel, I think it is a victim of the classical language in which it is written, because the generality of the Arab people is not proficient in reading it, unlike what happens in the West, where the difference between the written language and the oral language is so small that it hardly appears. The average citizen reads detective novels, fantastic adventure novels, science fiction, love novels, and many other types because their language is easy, smooth, and based on brief narrations about events and dialogues that do not differ from what this reader knows and hears in cafes and public places. And private. Therefore, they have novels that are sold in the millions, and the names of their authors are wealthy people who live off the sales of their books. The most prominent example for us from Algeria is the writer Yasmina Khadra, who has readers in the thousands, in addition to very well-known international names, such as Stephen King, Guillaume Misso, Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, J. your. Rawleigh is the author of the Harry Potter series and other celebrities.

Where are we among these people? I do not think that an Arab writer lives from the benefits of his books. Sonallah Ibrahim once stated that if it were not for the will of his translated books, he would have died of starvation. His Arab fame is great, but the sales of his books are very few, which does not give him enough money to live a decent living. Of course, there are those who accuse publishers of exploiting the author and not granting him all his rights. The first complainant is Naguib Mahfouz, as I read that he said that Lebanese publishers in particular print thousands of his novels without him receiving a single pound. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra once mentioned that he is the author of fifty-five books, and yet if it were not for his salary as a university professor, he would beg for his daily living, explaining that any writer in the West who has this number of books written and translated will inevitably live off the income of his books.

Despite all these obstacles that cause despair, the Arab book salons, including the Algiers Salon, remain a time of joy and meeting, especially for writers and publishers, because the Arab writer has become content with the minimum resource: finding a publisher to publish his book and market it, without asking for a financial contribution to printing the book, partially or completely, as happens in many Arab countries, and we also have with many of the innovative publishing companies for quick profits, as they have turned into brokers and intermediaries between The writer and the printing press did not provide the slightest service in reviewing the manuscript at the level of editing and linguistic proofreading.

It is the tragedy of the Arab novelist, especially the beginners. Of course, I am excluding here the respected publishers, who are many who respect this profession and appreciate the texts that are presented to them and work to present them in the best way, despite the lack of readability and the difficulties of distributing the book, whether in Algeria or in the Arab world. They are well-known to those interested in literary affairs and book printing, so there is no need to mention names. I dealt with them comfortably, and they welcomed my manuscripts, published them, and promoted them.

The science fiction novel appeared in Europe and America and created a wide readership for itself. As for why it is excluded from high literature and called marginal or paralittérature literature for many reasons, the first of which is that these novels do not work on literary and poetic language, and they rely on clear language and their main concern is presenting the story and elements of suspense. They are mainly directed to entertainment and are devoid of existential and philosophical human depth, except for what is rare. And just like the detective novels and adventure novels I mentioned previously. It does not present human life as it appears to humans in general, but rather relies on imagination and wonder that are absolutely unattainable. Like supernatural characters like Superman and heroes who overcome all difficulties, the spectator and reader are entertained by it without it arousing in him any feeling of love or hatred. As soon as he finishes reading, he throws it away without wanting to return to it. That is why they are called station romances de gare. The reader entertains himself with them while sitting on the train and neglects them in his seat upon departure. When you walk around libraries of old books in the streets of Paris, for example, you find them piled up and sold for centimes to anyone who wants to acquire them, while you only find literary books by famous writers in rare form and at always high prices, especially if the editions are old and rare, turning into a museum masterpiece, which the specialized reader rushes to acquire, even if they are at a high price.

I have a new novel entitled “The Ripple in the Characteristic of the Valley of Oblivion,” published by Dar Al-Ain in Cairo, the house that previously published two previous novels of mine, “The Fires of Wadi Ezer 2022” and “The Kaaba of the North and the Disappointed Time 2024,” which will be present at the next book fair in Algeria from October 28 to November 7, 2026, in Dar Al-Ain’s pavilion.

The novel (The Ripple on the Bank of the Valley of Forgetting) is new in my narrative path, both in terms of content and form. If my previous novels were closely linked to the social and historical life of modern Algeria from the standpoint of realism, as was evident in the narratives of the modern Arabic novel of the early twentieth century, whether in terms of the classic plot or characters rooted in a social and political context for known historical periods, as well as the style of description accompanying this realism, then this new novel presents a theme that combines a current geographical, anthropological reality that fades with the years and technological development to the point of extinction, and a legendary past, connected to oral heritage. It is wrapped in sanctification at times and reconsideration of its historicity at other times. The novel is based on alternating narration of events and the presentation of characters, in two apparently different stories, but they are parallel, complete, and meet in the end, because the time of the first story is flexible, delving into the biography of the characters, especially the character of the first narrator who begins the story by returning to the roots, to tell us the legendary biography of the grandfather, between what is narrated by the multi-faceted oral stories and what was recorded in the manuscripts discovered inside the tomb of the deer grandfather. To disappear due to excessive neglect and the preoccupation of his family, who still bear his name, but the concerns of the new life kept them away from him. The narrator works to decipher the hieroglyphs of those lines, which are on the verge of being erased, to dismantle their letters, which have been gnawed by insects and the feet of the yellow pages. This is how stories are composed and alternated. Sometimes the burden of narration is carried by the boy, Ali or Abdel Qader, to immerse the reader in spiral mazes, displaying his narcissism, intelligence, and ability to compete with others.The ancestors in formulating a new narrative that does not completely erase the old one, but rather corrects it through distortion and forgery, accompanied by stories that he himself is confused about how and where to classify them. He included real events that could happen that the mind accepts, or within modern myths that emerged from ancient myths. He was proud that he, too, was allowed to create his own myths, because writing, which is the one who is working on writing a new manuscript, depends on the previous manuscripts but differs from them, because he firmly believes that the act of writing carries It necessarily contains something new, and this new will only happen through change, even if it is forgery and distortion.

As for the second story, which alternates with the first, it is the story of two hills facing each other, the Hill of Olive and the Hill of the Fig, a geographical place that gradually becomes smaller, and separates the two peaks from the Bouhanisha Valley, which is also called the Valley of Eizer, because the names are many and varied for the same thing, such as the narrator bearing the names Ali and Abdul Qadir, and the valley was at one time inhabited by water, fish, and nature that was abundant with everything delicious. It was good, but it was no longer so due to the prolonged drought, and it seemed as if it would become immortal and eliminate signs of life in it. And over every mountain of sheikhs, Sheikh Abdul Qadir and Sheikh Suleiman are close to one grandfather, whose children were separated a long time ago, to live an enmity and estrangement that lasted for a long time. They live in a time that seems to have stopped, on a barren land and under a scorching sky that refuses to provide help. The two sheikhs are waiting for a miracle that may come from the sea, or from the valley that has turned into a sea in the eyes of Sheikh Suleiman, where strange things happen that tempt their children to follow them. Perhaps the rain came from the desert, where the roots of the grandfather, the righteous guardian who protected them and has been protecting them for centuries, originate. But there was no rain, no rain, and no miracle, neither from the sea nor from the desert. Rather, natural disasters increase their numbers, such as the invasion of locusts and the raids of hungry, distressed wolves. Drought and the interruption of water from wells and the valley also cause the outbreak of a war that may destroy what remains of the pulse of life on the entire banks of the valley and on the populated hills. Neither of the two sheikhs is the head of a family of men, women, servants, vast lands, and herds of livestock, but they do not work to improve it or try to change it. They just watch each other and dream of beautiful days without leaving their place.

Other stories intersect, such as the wondrous story of Ali, who asserts as if it were an indisputable truth that he remembers the day he was born and what he saw on that rainy day, and the stages of his harsh childhood and his exceptional memory that makes him memorize the verse from the first and only hearing, as well as the story of his father, named Ali Al-Dhib, because of a strange incident that happened to him with a wolf, or a wolf cub, that shook the people of the village and the incident remained on their tongues for years. But the strange story is unique to his grandfather, called Sidi Abdul Qadir Al-Subaie, because he killed a lion to save a village from destruction, and he did not leave his distant village except because he saw in his dream, as the prophets see, a strange vision, which caused his migration and the beginning of his wondrous travels.

Finally, annihilation and destruction come, and the narrator, who has been writing a manuscript to commemorate the sacred valley that will turn into a sea, has nothing left but to record what his memory has allowed him to retain, even if this memory has also been damaged, just as strange damage has befallen the letters of the manuscript, as they too have begun to erase, and the difficulty of recording is almost impossible again.

The novel (The Ripple on the Bank of the Valley of Forgetting) is actually a ripple that travels the reader through worlds that combine the real and the imagined, through two alternating stories that separate and meet, and cross-pollinate through pivotal stations, so that the narrative continues in a process of temptation and astonishment through a narrative style and descriptive language, attached to the embodied things, and suggestive that refers to those things, leaving them flying in dreamy spaces at times. And a nightmare illusion at other times.

It is truly a new novel in the fullest sense of the word in my novelistic path.