“He is in a state of literary death, I can’t wait until we can hear and read him,” said Académie Goncourt president Philippe Claudel

The French-Algerian writer continues to receive support from the Académie Goncourt, and has recently also received support from literary award winners.

Algeria accepted it to pardon the French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal who has been detained in Algeria since November 2024, announced Wednesday 12 Novemberhe presidency of Algeria. We asked writer Philippe Claudel, president of the Académie Goncourt, which works to support novelists and essayists, for his reaction.

Franceinfo Culture: How did you receive the news of Boualem Sansal’s pardon ?
Philippe Claudel: Of course this is a joy, very extraordinary. Confirmed news that I have been waiting for a week. But over the past year, there have been moments like that, when we thought that liberation was near. I’m always very cautious, but it was true that it was confirmed at the end of the morning, I got the call, and I couldn’t wait for it to be official. I rejoice for Boualem, I rejoice for him, for his family, for his loved ones, and for everyone, of course, who supports him, who thinks about him. There are many people in France and around the world who are mobilizing, and it is important to mobilize, it is also important not to let go of the energy that is holding us back. I remember this summer, for example, I tried to talk about this again, and at the beginning of the school year too, because I found that, precisely, there was a waning interest on the part of public opinion, on the part of the media, and I felt that it would be very dangerous if, suddenly, we became accustomed to this state of affairs, to these beliefs, to this containment, and that we let time pass. I heard people say “Ah, fine, but what do you want us to do? ?“I said : “No, no, we must not be in a form of acceptance, passivity, instead we must always talk about it..” Last week, once again, at the Académie Goncourt…

On the sidelines of the Goncourt Prize presentation 2025 on the 4th November…
Yes, I had the idea, when the prizes were awarded, to make little badges for ourselves where they were written “I am Boualem Sansal”so that we can show our solidarity. The Brive Book Fair, of which I was president a few days ago, also named Boualem Sansal as honorary president. We must redouble these measures, and remain confident in our diplomatic service so that happy results can be obtained.

Boualem Sansal was an imprisoned writer, what does his release mean to you ?
What I have written several times about Boualem, about his imprisonment, is that he was in a state of literary death, as we can talk about brain death, meaning for a year, this man, Boualem, this writer, we didn’t know what he said, we didn’t hear what he said, we didn’t read what he wrote. It’s a form of excessive detention, because when you’re in prison, generally you’re locked up, but you’re still in dialogue with the outside world, through visits, through letters, which you can receive and send. However, this is not the case with Boualem. We have little information. We have a writer who is completely forbidden to speak and write. And of course, for an intellectual, for a lover of words and ideas, it is something truly dramatic. Of course, now that Boualem is out of prison, I also can’t wait physically, we can hear him, we can hear his voice and we can read him, we can listen to everything he said to us for a year and which we were deprived of.