Two lawsuits were filed in Algeria against the Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud and his psychiatrist wife, on the charge that they disclosed and used the story of a patient in the novel “Houri”, which was recently awarded the Prize Goncourt 2024.

“As soon as the book came out, we filed two lawsuits against Kamel Daoud and his wife, Aisha Nechtenduh, the psychiatrist who attended the victim.“Sada Urban, lawyer Fatima Benbraham told Agence France-Presse. The lawsuits were filed in the court of Oran, the city where Dowd and his wife live.

Saada Arban, who survived a massacre during Algeria’s civil war in the 1990s, spoke to a local television channel and accused the author of revealing her story without her approval.

“OR first lawsuit filed on behalf of the National Organization for Victims of Terrorism” and the second one on behalf of Urban, explained the lawyer. The lawsuits were filed in August, just days after the book was released and before it was awarded the Goncourt in early November. “We didn’t want to talk, lest they say we tried to block his nomination for the awardBenbraham explained.

According to the attorney, the lawsuits allege a breach of medical confidentiality because Dowd’s wife turned over the patient’s file to her husband. The pair are also accused of defaming victims of terrorism and violating the National Reconciliation Act, which bans any publication about the civil war period (1992-2002).

Last Friday, Saad Urban appeared on One TV and claimed that the novel “Uri” is about her life. Urban survived an attempted strangulation by armed Islamists and says she recognized herself in the book’s pages: the tube (which she uses to breathe and speak), her scars, her tattoos, even her hairdressing.

THE Camel Dowd did not respond to the accusations but the French publishing house Gallimard denounced the “violent smear campaigns orchestrated by certain media, close to a regime whose nature no one is ignorant of”. The publishing house stressed that the novel “Uri” is inspired by “the tragic events of Algeria” but its plot, characters and heroine are “products of imagination”.

Set in Oran, the novel tells the story of a young woman who lost the ability to speak during a massacre on December 31, 1999. In the Algerian civil war 200,000 people were killedaccording to official data.