“The disordered music of the world”: living in a country with holes

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Karim Akouche, a Quebec writer of Kabyle origin to discover absolutely, invents a language and explores a wounded territory, where love and war clash, in his novel, < strong>The Disordered Music of the World. With original writing, a unique, lyrical, lively form, he poetically and literary addresses the question of war, polarization and resilience. And he does it through the eyes of a child.

Little Sol, hero of the novel, was born in the fault line of History. His parents were murdered when he was born and he was saved by an old revolutionary with whom he lives in the maquis.

To help him endure the horrors of war, his adoptive grandfather tells fascinating stories, introduces him to writing poetry and promises to take him one day to the imaginary land of the polar bear and the kangaroo.

When his protector is imprisoned, Sol takes refuge in a farm where he creates a troupe, Les Artistes Affamés, to thumb his nose at war and chaos.

Fascinating author, scholar, Karim Akouche knows very well what he is talking about since he too could have been a child soldier. Growing up in Algeria in the 1990s, he witnessed atrocities and war. 

Karim, now in his 40s, could have become a soldier, but instead became an aeronautical engineer. Torn between heart and reason, he embraced the profession of writer. It's a chance for his readers.

A universal aim

War, a devastated country, full of holes, he knew that.&nbsp ;

“I lived through the civil war in the 90s. Islamism. I would say that for this book, the inspiration is local, but the aim is universal, he comments in an interview. I start from the Kabylie of Algeria, but I tried to extrapolate on this universal history. »

It makes a very interesting north-south mix. 

“Sol's grandpa promises to take him one day to the imaginary land of the white bear and the kangaroo. It is wanted on my part, to say I try to break the constraint of the classic novel: space. It is universal, to say that war is always there, always strikes. Even if I am optimistic, I am tragicomic. I know that the human being carries within him both the angel and the demon. »

He worked on the tone for a long time, to make a timeless novel. 

“Even if the base is North Africa, Kabylie, Algeria, and the readers have guessed the country a little bit, this country could be Ukraine, Haiti, Vietnam, etc. Many countries. »

His novel, he says, is a kind of romantic fable. 

« I call my novel tragic-baroque. North and south meet, intersect. An abstract word meets a concrete word without warning. Poetry crosses philosophy, humor, wisdom. I tried to do something new. »

• Karim Akouche was born in Kabylia (Algeria) and has been living in Quebec since 2008.
• His play Qui venir fleurir ma tombe was performed at the Place des Arts in 2011.
• He is a fan of walking and running, whatever the weather.
• He will be in residence as a writer in Paris over the next few months.
• He has received numerous awards and his novel has been edited by Alain Beaulieu, a great figure in the Quebec literary landscape.

EXTRACT

« My Grandpa was good, but sometimes not good, and I haven't told that yet, and yet everything must be said and, on top of that, little flying hearts begin for real to grow between you and me, and to make their butterfly wings grow until they brush the wings of fairies, you and I must water them with a canister full of frankness. I didn't find the word frankness in my Grandpa's Dictionnaire Intimate Resistance Dictionary, because the leaf where it is described was eaten by the autumn wind or by my white rabbit idiot gone. Shame. But I know the meaning of it, because my friend Yano had used it when he made a declaration of friendship to me just after the end of the duck walk exercise: “Frankness is the honey of the 'friendship. Without it, friends no longer stick.” Franchising, like trust, is expensive and, to buy it, money can do nothing. »