PALEWELL PRESS

Soleïman Adel Guémar worked as a freelance investigative journalist in Algeria from 1991 until 2002, when he claimed political asylum in the UK.

These short stories address the agonies of contemporary Algeria and the survival, despite everything, of dreams of a different world. Translated by Tom Cheesman, and first appearing in Local Therapy by Hafan Books, 2013, they have a “fighter’s edge, a tough beauty.” - Lisa Appignanesi, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature.

“The short prose works in Algiers: The Poet's Garden bring us to Algeria's black decade of the 1990s. Here language is pared back to a pure economy of expression that allows for the confrontation of madness and reason. The madness of a system that cloaks itself in the reason of law and a countering 'madness' of a utopian hope and vision – the only recourse of those for whom reality has become unreal.

In this collection Guemar sounds the depths of a society where justice, law and rules are hollowed out and where people are forced not to dream yet do so, in order as to escape the darkness. Wise, uncompromising, and unsettling these stories explore brutalising limits and look beyond a dystopian present.” - Patrick Crowley, University College Cork.

Algiers: The Poet's Garden launched in November 2019. You can order the paperback for £8.99 (excluding postage) from this page, or from Amazon ISBN 978-1-911587-29-3.