Kamel Daoud

Award-winning Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is one of the best-known intellectual voices in Algeria. He has attracted attention for his pronounced criticism of repressive morality in Islamic societies and the political instrumentalisation of Islam. Over the course of the controversy surrounding New Year's Eve in Cologne, he also presented nuanced positions in German media about the difficult relationship to the body in Islamic societies. His oft-discussed book The Meursault Investigation was published in France in 2014, and won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in the category of best début novel in 2016. In this work he gives a voice to the marginalized character of the Arab who's been deprived of his rights through colonialism and remains nameless in Camus' The Stranger. Daoud lives in Algeria and writes for Le Monde and The New York Times, et al.