Attacking Earth and Sun
In the 1830s, to distract from political and economic instability at home, the French government decided to colonise Algeria, taking advantage and ownership of fertile coastal plains and arid hinterlands. This story tells not only of hardy settlers in their new agricultural colony, battling harsh desert conditions of merciless weather and deadly disease, but also of the protective yet depraved French soldiers, battling ferocious Bedouin tribesmen. All this was in the name of pioneering progress and an avaricious imposition of one religion and culture onto another.
Characters’ names and locations are perhaps secondary, as this is, in effect, yet another example of every tyrannical conquest ever, e.g., Romans and their empire, Europeans in both Americas, the British in India, Nazis in and beyond Europe, not to mention African tribalism or Genghis Khan. Subjugation can never be anything less than brutal and, as is intimately described here, the combatants’ relentless, vile atrocities committed upon each other are as grim as the grimmest you might ever read, though surely accurate, then, now and undoubtedly to come. In this tragic tale, hope is forsaken, as are the dead, abandoned in the scorched blood-sodden dirt, and it’s a tough read, echoing the callous reality of oppression itself.
Belezi packs literally an awful lot into this short novel, his sad words afforded a poignant, macabre beauty by the simplicity of an excellent translation, which entices us through his stream-of-consciousness narrative, hardly a full stop anywhere. France’s chequered relationship with Algeria continues to this day, albeit perhaps somewhat overshadowed by more recent population movements. Le plus ça change…
