IPAF (International Prize for Arabic Fiction) 2020 Longlist.

The book tells the story of a young Algerian man - ‘the Killer’. The story opens with his existential questions about the meaning of truth, death, good and evil, questions without answers in the context of a family life steeped in poverty and misery. When he kills a cat, he becomes convinced that within him is a secret power driving him to kill and to enjoy it. As the country goes through turmoil, he joins the killing brigade of the National Guard, fighting the armed terrorists who are murdering people daily (in 1994). He becomes a professional killer, happily executing nightly operations. The novel follows his story and the lives of other young Algerian men who came into existence in a time of savagery, where corrupt human beings wreak havoc and destruction, and human values are deprived of any meaning.
Bachir Mefti is a writer and journalist, born in 1969 in Algiers, Algeria. He has published a number of short story collections and novels,