The Last Summer of Reason

by Tahar Djaout, Marjolijn de Jager (translator)

This elegantly haunting work of fiction features bookstore owner Boualem Yekker, who lives in a country overtaken by a radically conservative party known as the Vigilant Brothers, a group that seeks to control every aspect of life according to the precepts of their rigid moral theology. The belief that no work of beauty created by humans should rival the wonders of their god is slowly consuming society, and the art once treasured is now despised. Boualem resists the new regime with quiet determination, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now empty family life, and his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him. "Books have been the compost in which Boualem's life ripened, to the point where his bookish hands and his carnal hands, his paper body and his body of flesh and blood very often overlap and mingle. In the end Boualem himself didn't see a clear distinction any more. He has met so many characters in books, he has come in contact with so many destinies that his own life would be nothing without them." Marketing plans for The Last Summer of Reason : A percentage of proceeds go to ABFFE. Joint promotions with ABFFE and member stores, including highlight in Bookselling This Week .
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Co-op available Tahar Djaout was considered one of the most promising writers of his generation, and was a firm believer in democracy. Djaout's murder was attributed to the Islamic Salvation Front, who reported that he was killed because he "wielded a fearsome pen." He is the author of eleven books, including the novel Les vigiles , which won the Prix Mediterrane.

Genres: Fiction, Algeria, Africa, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Books About Books, Novels

145 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

From Wikipedia: Tahar Djaout was an Algerian journalist, poet, and fiction writer. He was assassinated by the Armed Islamic Group because of his support of secularism and opposition to what he considered fanaticism. He was attacked on May 26, 1993, as he was leaving his home in Bainem, Algeria. He died on June 2, after lying in a coma for a week. One of his attackers professed that he was murdered because he "wielded a fearsome pen that could have an effect on Islamic sectors." He was born in Azeffoun, in the relatively secular Kabylie region. After his death the BBC made a documentary about him entitled 'Shooting the Writer', introduced by Salman Rushdie.

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: This elegant, haunting novel takes us deep into the world of bookstore owner Boualem Yekker. He lives in a country being overtaken by the Vigilant Brothers, a radically conservative party that seeks to control every element of life according to the laws of their stringent moral theology: no work of beauty created by human hands should rival the wonders of their god. Once-treasured art and literature are now despised.

Silently holding his ground, Boualem withstands the new regime, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now-empty family life, his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him.

From renowned Algerian author Tahar Djaout we inherit a brutal and startling story that reveals how far an ordinary human being will go to maintain hope.

THIS WAS A BIRTHDAY GIFT (ALBEIT UNWITTING!) FROM A FRIEND. THANKS, YOUR KICKASSNESS!

My Review: First of all, let's clear up something that could cause a lot of people pleasure-robbing confusion: This is not a novel. It is a récit. The narrative is so limited in its focus that there is no sense of a world larger than itself, which makes the reader aware at all times that they are reading a narrative. This is not an insult or a criticism of the technique used, but of the marketing decision to call this a novel. It will disappoint novel-readers who buy it hoping for that immersive, multi-faceted experience of a story.

The Introduction by Toumi and the Foreword by Soyinka are essays fully worthy of reviews of their own. I will not be providing those reviews because I am not a scholar. The context they present is the infuriating context of the murdered Author Djaout's life and times. The facts of his all-too-brief life are on Wikipedia for monoglot English speakers. There is so much that US citizens have simply ignored or willfully shut out of their experience of the world, and as a result we seem to be willing to leap over high precipices to fall into fathomless oceans of rage and hatred, as Djaout warns his readers against. Boualem, his PoV character, is thrown over the edge willy-nilly, but he's got just enough time to form himself into an arrow.

The dive one takes while reading the book is deep, though, so don't think it's not profound and perception-altering to experience Boualem's deep dive into despair as his world, his entire life's work of defining and refining himself as a moral actor in that world, is fractured and flattened by a social earthquake. The depths of despair Boualem plumbs will be familiar to book-lovers watching the steady, pernicious, and malicious attacks on education, intelligence, and erudition we're seeing in the US.

I used up about half a can of Book Darts (may the goddesses please bless my kind friend Stephanie for gifting me this timely top-up of my supply for this past birthday!) marking beautiful passages to quote in my review. The lovely translation done by Translator de Jager is almost too rich a confection to be devoured in a sitting...but I did it. Yes, it was like a breakfast of rich brownies topped with lemon curd and served with a café viennoise, but it was also a heady experience of glorious phrase-making. I was Zooming with my Young Gentleman Caller while I was writing an earlier draft of this review. He said of my Book Darted copy, "I don't dare take it to the airport like that."

"Hmm?"

"It's got more hardware than a Goth biker."

Oh. Well, yes. Permaybehaps I'd better make the point sharper and more targeted:

Books—the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents—constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror. They are the most pleasant and the most subtle means of traveling to a more compassionate planet. How will Boualem go on living now that they have separated him from his books, his most invigorating nourishment? He is like a plant that has been torn from the soil, separated from liquid and light, its two vital necessities. He has been excluded from the life of books. He has been exiled from all the landmarks of his childhood: values, trampled, symbols corrupted, spaces disfigured and wrecked.

That, my olds, is what's right and what's wrong with this récit. If you ran across the first two sentences in a novel, you'd think, "oo, that's pretty." Put the rest of the para behind it and you're in a récit not a novel, and one that needed a developmental editor's unkind attention. There is so very much of this sort of pretty, pretty phrasemaking that just goes on that little bit too long, that says what's already been said (“For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.”–Cicero, b. 106BCE, and a famous enough quote that Author Djaout can reasonably be expected to have read it during his education) in a not hugely fresh way.

That said, one is disinclined to hammer the hell out of the book because it was incomplete and fished out of the author's drawers after his murder. I know, and I can't explain how, that this book would've been absolutely earth-shattering had he lived, and had the chance to work with an editor to bring its many strengths and beauties into a finer, sharper focus. There is about this read the ozone smell and static crackle of greatness. The sadness that follows reading it is rooted in the sense that this promise is undelivered, in fact undeliverable, because Author Tahar Djaout was murdered by the pro-ignorance, anti-beauty forces that ran roughshod over his country.

Do not think the same can not happen here, happen again, happen to the resisters and artists and truth-tellers you're ignoring, skimming, marginalizing today. Vote Blue in November 2020 and allow Author Tahar Djaout's sacrifice of his life to be worthy.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can a man exist with a heart capable of committing the horrors thus told?

This brief, terrifying tale of dystopia was found in he author's papers after fundamentalists killed him outside his home in in Algeria in 1992. This is an interminable nightmare, but one with blessing. Such terrors are sanctioned from on high and that is the element which scares me. People are often so certain about religion. Doubt is removed. Butchering everyone else can be viewed to assist and assert expansion of said purity. Oh dear.

I have wanted to read the Oxford World's Classics edition of the Bible for about six months now. I like the idea of parsing and plumbing that nebulous pool of story and symbol. What I recoil against is what everyone here (locally, in Southern Indiana) will then say to me. No, I most likely won't be shot dead in the street. No, people will likely engage, intrude and blather on about their "relationship with God." I really don't need that.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

(review originally written for Bookslut)

Tahar Djaout was assassinated for writing books like The Last Summer of Reason. His words are disconcerting, discomforting, and it's not only the fundamentalist Islamic groups (who have been attributed the responsibility for his death) who should be uneasy, it should be all of us. This book is an elegant argument against the complacency of political correctness that excuses brutal repression in the name of cultural differences. As recent events have all too clearly illustrated, hate allowed to fester anywhere will eventually spill out of those boundaries we thought had contained it.

It's all too easy to let any discussion of this book spill over into politics, because this book is more than a novel. Hopefully someday people will be able to read this book purely for its simple poetic prose, appreciate it just for its finely crafted story. Right now, I find it hard to read it in any other way than as a window into the political climate of our times.

As such The Last Summer of Reason is brilliant and chilling. As I was reading it I kept trying to compare it to dystopian novels like 1984 and Brave New World in my head, but the comparisons didn't quite fit because this is not quite a dystopian novel. Instead of immersing the reader in a futuristic world in which personal freedoms are a thing of the past, it starts fairly innocuously, in a country run by religious fundamentalists, but in which one can still buy and sell controversial books, people could still resist.

What is fascinating about this book is the slow progression of intolerance. What is terrifying about this book is how rarely it is the authorities who enforce the new codes of behavior, but fellow citizens. In the beginning, it is the children, easily molded, who shame their parents into belief. Once the children have converted their parents, they start in on the neighborhood. Suddenly they are the authorities, and they throw rocks and break windows in order to punish those not living up to the image of the perfectly devout. Finally the adults join in, monitoring the behavior of their families, their neighbors, complete strangers.

It is a horrifying thing to watch, a horrifying thing to imagine happening to you, to people you love. It is terrifying to think that this base intolerance must lie in the hearts of all of us, sleeping, waiting for the right time to come out. Somewhere deep inside, are we all the gestapo? Do we all long to enforce our own moral codes onto others? Given someone else's moral codes, would we all just as happily press those onto everyone we know? How long would you resist, if your freedoms were being taken away millimeter by millimeter? How hard would you struggle, if they were not your freedoms being taken away, but your neighbor's? your enemy's?

The Last Summer of Reason is a great book not because it answers such big questions, but because it provokes them. This is a book of our times, and it is later than you think.

[Kobe Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting assassinated by fanatic extremists for your writing is badass

[Rachel Smalter Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is most of all a love letter to books, and their expression of dreams and ideas. This is also a warning cry about people who destroy books because they hate dreams and ideas -- the sort of people who love only control & death.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about ideas in books and speech, and the necessity of dissent. Here, the author evokes a world in which those who love ideas are silenced and persecuted. This world is dark, bleak and scary -- and it is also a parallel to the repressive communities and institutions within our own very real world.

But Tahar Djaout's last book feels so unfinished. In some ways this makes the book more powerful, because it serves as a reminder that Djaout was actually murdered by religious extremists before the book was published. In other ways, though, I think it makes the narrator's terror, anger, love and conviction feel diluted and broken. These were still just half-jotted down notes. There are completely beautiful passionate bursts, though, and this is what will keep you under Djaout's spell.

[Bucket · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boualem Yekker, bookseller in an unnamed county, is living on borrowed time as someone who does not buy into the new extremely religious regime in his country. The dictatorial new laws are enforced with violence and through coercion, and require women to be completely covered and religious rituals to be practiced. They also forbid things like books, music, and mixed-gender or otherwise "immoral" socializing. Boualem's family, disgusted with his refusal to comply, have left him. We spend the novel in Boualem's thoughts and dreams. He considers his past, including wonderful memories, and dreams terrible things.

"Books -- the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents -- constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror. They are the most pleasant and the most subtle means of traveling to a more compassionate planet."

The manuscript of this novel was found in Tahar Djaout's papers when he was assassinated in 1993. 20 years later, a story that once served as a terrifying warning about the dangers of religious extremism of dictatorial governments now reads more like a description of reality or a memoir more than ever. His main character is Boualem, a bookseller who has refused to comply with the regime. Boualem's family has deserted him and the novel describes in details his thoughts, memories, and dreams.

Djaout's writing is thick with the feeling of oppression and a lack of hope. Boualem is extremely lonely, and notes "how little our own life belongs to us, to what extent is becomes useless as soon as one is confronted with oneself, freed from the conflicts, bondage, worries, or joys those to whom our destiny is linked impose on or bring to us. There is an uncontrollable panic in finding oneself alone with the world." Writing about faith, Djaout describes it as "a desert of stones; a gravel wasteland with a scraped face."

Djaout also writes about what such a regime does to children ("What this ax [of faith] would like to cut off first is the path leading to the child, the umbilical cord that serves as an Ariadne's thread."), using Boualem's childhood memories as a guide. Boualem thinks of his young self, thrilled to learn and discover new things, and use his imagination in playing and singing, and he realizes that this "exciting universe, a universe that is both bewitching and dangerous" is closed off to children. Instead, "children have become the blind and convinced executors of a truth that has been presented to them as a higher truth."

Djaout writes beautifully, and there are moments of charm and joy in the novel despite its themes.

Boualem's memories of his daughter: "Kenza strugges against the wind, her inquisitive face forward, her brown curls fighting... Kenza is exploring the mysteries of the world, decoding the murmurs of the earth with the magic wand of her entrenched candor."

His love for Arabic texts: "Each time the reading is a new adventure, unpredictable steps forward, convoluted comings and goings to flush out the face of the words, give them back their purpose, place them in their role of locomotive or carriage."

The important role of books: "Books have been the compost in which Boualem's life ripened, to the point where his bookish hands and his carnal hands, his paper body and his body of flesh and blood very often overlap and mingle."

Themes: religious extremism, books, dictatorship, oppression, violence, govern by fear, power, reason vs. blind faith, future, memories, political extremism, family, dystopia

[ashelen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Grada (BoekenTrol) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very eerie tale that got under my skin. Reading it almost made me feel like I was there, next to Boualem Yekker. I'm glad I live in a country where all voices can be heard, whether they sing, shout, come to us in written form or just in a conversation.
I hope people in countries that are governed like this won't lose the courage to keep treasuring books, music and songs. Ordinary heroes are needed!

It's a shame it has taken me this long to get to this book. But... It'll resume its travels very soon.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trochę przerażająca wizja radykalizującego się kraju i ludzi, którą niestety można sobie wyobrazić też w naszym kontekście. Całość trochę trąci poczuciem wyższości charakterystycznym dla wykształconych mężczyzn pokolenia boomerów, ale i tak warto przeczytać.

[Kaj Peters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beklemmend hoe Tahar Djaout de defaitistische gedachtewereld beschrijft van een boekhandelaar in een fundamentalistisch islamitisch regime. In alles een soort islamitische staat avant la lettre, met een zedenpolitie, met rigide kledingvoorschriften, met een propaganda-offensief in kunst, cultuur en wetenschap, met openlijke vijandigheid naar vrouwen toe en met een uitgebreid kliksysteem om de brave gelovigen van de ongelovigen te scheiden. Een politieke en ideologische beweging om verschillende identiteiten mee uit te vlakken, om daarmee een kleurloze maatschappij te creëren waar 'de Waarheid' elke twijfel of verbeelding overbodig maakt, want waarom zou iemand voorbij de religie durven denken als men in een continue overlevingsmodus terechtkomt!? Een naargeestige en moedeloze plek waar de schoonheid van het leven wordt overschaduwd door een obsessie met de dood.

Niet de fysieke werkelijkheid van geweld en narigheid creëert hier de spanning, maar de manier waarop deze Boualem Yekker de terreur zelf heeft geïnternaliseerd: hij wil zich tegen de rigide spelregels verzetten, een subversief tegengeluid bieden. Maar de angst voor represailles en zijn outsiderpositie maken hem neurotisch en wantrouwig. Elke dag kan het zo ver zijn: ze mishandelen of vermoorden hem, of pakken de boekhandel af omdat het niet binnen hun wereldbeeld bast. Boualem klampt zich vast aan zijn melancholische herinneringen: het enige wat hij nog heeft. Toen zijn vrouw en kinderen nog niet geïndoctrineerd waren en mee bewogen met de geestdodende massa. Toen mensen nog boeken lazen en bereid waren om werelden te verbeelden voorbij de beperkende kaders van de Koran.

Op een bepaald punt voelt de boekhandelaar een onvermogen om zijn zinnelijke ervaringen en existentiële zijns-kwesties nog los te zien van de doodse ideologieën die Allah’s vurigste discipelen hem opleggen. Beetje bij beetje dooft de intellectueel uit en komt hij tot de slotsom: wat levert mijn subversiviteit en verzet de maatschappij nog op als niemand meer wil luisteren!? Het is een vraag die in de roman niet opgelost wordt, want de seculiere auteur Tahar Djaout zou in werkelijkheid vermoord worden door het type Islamisten dat hij in zijn roman beschrijft.

'Le Dernier Été de la Raison' (1999) is een roman in wording gebleven: het plot mist richting en structuur en lijkt niet echt ergens naar toe te werken. En toch zijn de bittere, melancholische lamentaties van Boualem Yekker - waarbij zijn frustratie, het onbegrip en de woede van de pagina’s spatten- zo veel betekenisvoller omdat je weet dat de werkelijke auteur zelf zou worden uitgevlakt door deze ideologische beweging.

[leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* hauntingly beautiful! winding, creative prose and profound meditations on the power of literature and art, all in the context of the oppressive political regime of Algeria in the 90s. a poignant political message lies in the entire novel’s undercurrent - exacerbated by the fact that it was originally written in french (the language of Algeria’s colonizer) and the death of Djauot before he finished writing…but its quite literally unfinished nature is my only complaint. it feels, at times, incredibly repetitive and littered with excess,,,,basically just unfinished LOL

[Sigrid A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book offers a horrific glimpse into life under the regime of religious extremists.

[Aj Sterkel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is for the English translation of an Algerian book.

If I was one of those heathens who highlights in books, I would have highlighted every word in this one. The writing is stunning. I wish I had read this book sooner instead of letting it linger on my shelf for months.

I first heard of author Tahar Djaout several years ago, but The Last Summer of Reason is the only book of his I’ve read. Djaout lived in Algeria and was an outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism. In 1993, he was murdered by an Islamic group because he “wielded a fearsome pen that could have an effect on Islamic sectors.” The unfinished manuscript of The Last Summer of Reason was found in his home after his death.

This tiny dystopian novel (145 pages) reminds me of a philosophy book. There isn’t a lot of action. The author mainly uses the character as vehicle to examine complex ideas about religious extremism and creativity.

"Some men, citing divine will and legitimacy, decided to shape the world in the image of their dream and their madness . . ." The Last Summer of Reason

In an unnamed country, a bookstore owner, Boualem Yekker, is trying to survive. His country has been taken over by a group called the Vigilant Brothers, who seek to control every second of people’s lives. They even have laws about which foot a person has to put into bed first. There are no weather reports on the news because only God can predict the weather. Boualem’s family and friends have already deserted him to support the Vigilant Brothers. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he loses his bookshop and possibly his life. As the Vigilant Brothers tighten their stranglehold over the country, Boualem retreats into his memories to stay sane.

This book is basically a love letter to art, especially books. It proposes that society needs artists because artists are the ones who ask the hard questions. Art forces us to look inside ourselves and question why we believe what we do. Religious fundamentalism does the opposite. That’s why fundamentalists burn books and destroy art. Fundamentalists don’t like creativity. They believe there is only one correct way to live, and they are intolerant of anyone who lives differently. People like Boualem are not welcome in their world because they ask questions.

"Books have been the compost in which Boualem's life ripened, to the point where his bookish hands and his carnal hands, his paper body and his body of flesh and blood very often overlap and mingle." – The Last Summer of Reason

As the book goes on, the Vigilant Brothers become so powerful that they take everything away from Boualem. The only things they can’t touch are his memories.

The chilling part of this book is that it’s a dystopia, but it also isn’t. The author lived through the beginning of this dystopia. He died to prevent the events in this book from happening. Sometimes, the book feels more like a memoir than a novel.

The Last Summer of Reason is very real. It’s also hard to review because it’s unfinished. The author didn’t mean for readers to see it like this. But, it’s worth reading if you’re curious about Islamic extremism and the people who fight against extremist rule.

“The arrogant elimination of the Djaouts of our world must nerve us to pursue our own combative doctrine, namely: that peaceful cohabitation on this planet demands that while the upholders of any creed are free to adopt their own existential absolutes, the right of others to do the same is thereby rendered implicit and sacrosanct. Thus the creed of inquiry, of knowledge and exchange of ideas, must be upheld as an absolute, as ancient and eternal as any other.” – The Last Summer of Reason (Introduction)

[Sandra The Old Woman in a Van · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Will there be another spring”? The closing words of this haunting novel by Algerian author Tahar Djaout. Written some time between 1990 and 1992 the manuscript was found after Djaout was assassinated by Islamists. He chronicals the rise of religious fundamentalim in Algieria through the eyes of a book seller. We Westerners think we know about Islamist societies, but this novel so precisely describes how such a transformation can happen, the consequences and the death blow to the soul that occurs. The book is so much more striking because it is a essay and premonition on the author’s own assassination. Originally written in French the language as it translated into English is so descriptive a reader feels emersed in the transformation of Algiers. I don’t have the words to even begin to describe a book where every sentence is so meticulously written I can close my eyes and feel transported.

Don’t just think of this a book about Islamists - it inimately describes how any despotic ruler or regime can devour a country before its citizens even recognize what is occuring. And book/art censoring and burning always accompanies these transitions.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books ever written. This novel is so important, especially in times like these.

This novel reminds you of how important it is to understand one another, no matter how different. People have a right to have different interests, beliefs, and opinions. This is what makes the world such a magically diverse place.

Below are a few of my favorite quotes:
"...The proliferation of a mind-set that feeds on a compulsion to destroy other beings who do not share, not even the same beliefs, but specific subcategories of such beliefs. It is a mind-set that destroys the creative or adventurous of any community. It continues to prove efficient at fueling devastating conflicts all over the world..."

"Being separated from books is the greatest upheaval he has faced in his life...it is as if a black wall had been erected."

"Books-the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents-contstitute the safest refuge against this world of horror."

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This lyrical story (all the more stunning for being a translation) portrays the importance of art and the dangers of fundamentalism with power and brevity. I cannot recommend it more enthusiastically. The brilliant and incisive preface by Wole Soyinka is a must read.

[Paulina M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mocna, uniwersalna, aktualna.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was introduced to this book as a result of reading: A History of Algeria by James McDougall, which described the sort of absurd, random violence this author found himself caught up in. This was a time when Algerians were burning books, murdering intellectuals, beating up unveiled women and killing people because they found wine corks in their garbage. The radicals were choosing to kill anyone who refused to think and act as they did.

Tahar Djaout was an outspoken critic of the Islamic extremism that pervaded Algeria. This was a time when radical Islamists conducted what Djaout refers to as “intellectual-cide” in Algeria. Lists of people to be eliminated were posted in neighborhood mosques and murders were accomplished by roving bands of narrow-minded fundamentalists. Djaout was assassinated in 1993 because of his support of secularism and his open opposition to radical Islamic fanaticism. The Last Summer of Reason was found among Djaout’s papers after his death and was subsequently published.

It is interesting to know that, although Arabic, and actually Muslim, Djaout wrote in French, the language of colonial Algeria, not in Arabic. In fact, the majority of the Algerian people speak an Algerian Creole, which is a mixture of French-Arabic-Berber and has no alphabet. Additionally, very few Algerians are literate in classical Arabic. In order to write, most Algerians must do so in French, a foreign language, or in classical Arabic, which is also quite foreign to them. Because France occupied Algeria for more than 100 years, the overwhelming majority of intellectuals in Algeria are bilingual, as are the most successful business people.

Few people are aware that this part of North Africa has produced many avid writers and thinkers, which makes it tragic that it should be sacrificed to the blind dictates of narrow minded fundamentalists. Saint Augustine (354-430) was from an ancient Roman province in modern day Algeria, in what is today known as Souk Ahras. Albert Camus (1913-1960), the famous existentialist writer, was from Algiers; and this commendable author, Tahar Djaout (1954-1993), is from the Algerian village of Oulkhou. One can only wonder what other amazing creativity has been stifled by the horrifying activities of radical Islamic terrorists who have silenced those who refuse to embrace their narrow minded ideology.

It is terribly tragic that a social order could sustain itself that would feed on a compulsion to destroy other beings who do not share the same beliefs. Such minds seem unreachable, permanently lost in the dark ages, imprisoned amidst the darkest places of superstition, seemingly diseased, as put forth so well by Albert Camus’, the author of the novel The Plague :

“If there are not enough people to stand up for liberty and justice, to denounce racists and fundamentalists, then the calamity of the plague will rise up its rats again and send them forth to infect our happy cities”. -Albert Camus

But one must question if this is all about religion or has more to do with political domination. Minorities have used religion to control populaces since the beginning of civilization and conformism is the prime conditioning tool used to exercise such power. We see such conformism, even in the West. Conformism is evident in writing, preaching, dress codes, etiquette, relationships, dietary choices, even thought. Conformism is the mechanism of control that enthrones a monopoly by the minority class in power.

In contrast to conformism, the fruits of the forbidden tree remain diversified knowledge and inquiry: the wisdom to see beyond the bubble within which culture incarcerates us. Conformism comes to be conveniently dubbed “tradition” and thus made sacrosanct. Finding a way out of the prison of conformity seems very radical because people are born into "mind-closure" by their upbringing. As a result, people become willing tools for accommodating intolerance.

It is amazing how easily those so indoctrinated resort to the repression of those who refuse to remain prisoners of conformity. A simple example from the West would be the hysteria of football fandom, which I cite as an example because I was recently attacked verbally and physically by a relative sharing my alma mater, because I didn’t watch a football game wearing school colors, which they superstitiously perceived to have caused the team to lose. This occurred, even though we were watching the event via television, on holiday, at the beach! Such human reactions are indicative of how quickly indoctrinated values may result in open hostility to those who are noticeably different, seen as traitors, and against whom is wielded verbal and physical force.

The proliferation of this sort of social conformism results in the loss of creative minds, artists, writers and other visionaries who bring newness to society. Because creative minds dare to suggest or bring alternatives to the ingrained ordering of the social structure, they are seen as subversives. As a result, conformism is clearly a retrogressive impetus in society that seeks to quell the normal life instincts humans possess toward originality and variety.

Perhaps a more serious example in the United States is the attacks on abortion clinics by Christian fundamentalists. These are people who somehow graduated from mere righteous indignation to actually executing doctors, while their coreligionists openly cheered them on! Clearly, as implied by Camus, conformism is a contagion, like any other known transmissible disease, except that, instead of making us physically ill, it denigrates our rights to a life of freedom.

The Last Summer of Reason reads like an Orwellian novel, but is much more poetic. Djaout has an obvious gift of prose that is so serene that it makes the horror of what he is describing digest-able, much like coating a bitter pill in chocolate. Through the novel, Djaout gives the reader a taste of what it must be like to live in a society dominated by radical Islamic terrorists who see themselves rooting out wild, unwanted plants from the midst of humanity. Such oppressors fear these unwanted plants will become a tree that, as in the garden of Eden, will offer up its fruits to humanity.

However, these fruits of diversity are what spurs humanity out of the prisoned enclosure of instinctual conformism, out of being merely God’s pet, out upon an open journey into the world, so that one may learn how to love God of one’s own accord. The fruit of diversity takes man beyond mere animalistic instinct, pushing him toward his creators image, so that he may learn to love his creator volitionally. For why else would the creator have ever created such a tree?

One beautiful part of the novel is Djaout’s poetic description of the indefatigable human creative spirt. Djaout writes as follows:

“After the first public and dramatic trials brought against materialists, laypeople, and followers of all kinds of atheism, it did not take the inquisitors long to realize that the individuals they were judging were only a kind of offshoot, the effect and not the cause, and that the roots and the trunk of the evil lay elsewhere, able to go into greening again, burgeon once more to bring forth other unnatural fruits. As long as music can transport the spirit, painting can make the core bloom with a rapture of colors, and poetry can make the heart pound with rebellion and hope, they will have gained nothing. To affirm their victory, they knew what they had to do. They broke musical instruments, burned rolls of film, slashed canvases of paintings, reduced sculptures to rubble.” -Tahar Djaout

Djaout effectively makes his main character, Boualem, the ostracized owner of a bookstore, the embodiment of one facilitating the delivery of this so called “corruption of knowledge”. In the novel, Boualem becomes a personification of a limb or leaf of the tree that is to be uprooted. Boualem’s persecutors see all of those who have knowledge, talent, elegance or physical beauty as they see Boualem, and revile them for their uniqueness, urging them to make amends so as to become integrated among the herd of submissive believers. Unfortunately, such amends means acquiescing to the ugliness that asceticism requires.

In this novel, Djaout does a wonderful job of describing what it must be like to live in an oppressive theocracy. To convey Djaouts perception, I have compiled the following list describing the novel’s theocracy:

*as a place that cannot be questioned, for even open questions are seen as arrogance, temptations, or sacrilege.

*as a place where anyone caught outside of a mosque at the hour of prayer has to answer before a religious tribunal.

*as a place where only a few types of clothing are permitted to be sold and citizens are obliged to wear them.

*as a place where few dare to venture into Boualem’s bookstore, for fear of being seen.

*as a place where women must cloak themselves within a dark cocoon of clothing and become almost anonymous in appearance, their bodies denied and erased by stiff, rigid, shroud-shaped fabric, relegating them to merely black shapes, leaving no trace of a human body, and marking them as cursed beings of temptation.

*as a place where the religious preach violence and the occurrence of daily violence is the norm.

*as a place where bearded young men establish random roadblocks to inspect if an automobiles occupants are wearing unacceptable clothing or carrying unacceptable things like alcohol.

*as a place where radicals walk around with automatic pistols and submachine guns.

*as a place where a paralyzing cowardice takes hold of everyone.

*as a place where all reading except the Holy Book is forbidden.

*as a place where novels, essays, and poetry are considered nothing but perverse ramblings.

*as a place where a huge, impassable abyss exists between the indoctrinated illiterate and those who have read hundreds of books.

*as a place governed by men who have never consulted any modern book and who are perhaps not sufficiently literate to do so.

*as a place regulated by the rhythm of enforced prayer times.

*as a place where art is seen as a pretentious endeavor to compete with God.

*as a place where science is seen as absurd in the face of religion.

*as a place where the religious feel impelled to be personally involved in everyone else’s behavior.

*as a place where one must act in emulation of ones neighbors, letting the beard grow, wearing the gandoura, and displaying constant piety.

*as a place where many people have become robots for the one who runs the country, the one in charge of both theology and politics, having no culture, no leisure activities, no affection, only their crazed martyrdom, being ready only to kill or die, believing that true existence exists only outside of this world.

*as a place where religion is practiced in violence, taught with force, and promulgated by threat.

*as a place where there is no attempt at scientific explanation at all: no rational look at things, no questions delineated, all occurrences attributed only to the will of the Almighty.

*as a place where the religious claim the right to destroy people in order to save their souls.

*as a place where dogma punishes intelligence and extinguishes its queries.

As you can see, this book brings a dire warning for all of us as to how easy it is to fall prey to a herd mentality, how easy for us to simply grab a pair of those blinders that fundamentalists so generously offer us and sport them about, acquiescing in the subconscious way that humans do. But to do so is to make ourselves into the image of those around us or into the image of what others expect of us, forgetting our true authenticity.

We were born to have a body and to deal with that body as it exists in nature: to feel the night breathe, to hear natures music, to see the rhythm in the chorus of the rain, to smell the bright day, to taste meticulously prepared meals, to see all the beauties that awaken our eyes, and, yes, to see and experience human desire for one another.

-END-

[Peter Allum · Rating 4 out of 5]

More successful as reflection on Islamic fundamentalism than as a novella.

The protagonist, Boualem Yekker, is a bookseller who sees Algeria fall under the influence of radical Islam in the 1990s. I hadn’t reflected before on how religious fundamentalism was similar to Naziism or communism in requiring strict adherence to a mandatory way of thinking and behavior; resistance to the regime and deviant thinking are severely punished.

Radical Islam seeks to discourage secular literature in the same way that it bans music, dancing, and art (anything that evokes pleasures outside of a strict religious life). Initially, Boualem is tolerated as a backstreet bookseller but, as orthodoxy becomes more rigid, he starts to receive anonymous threats. His wife and two children, unwilling to share his growing isolation, leave him and conform to the religious zealots’ demands.

The Last Summer of Reason does not have a strong plot, being more a series of reflections by the aging bookseller on the catastrophy unfolding in Algeria and the way in which he tries to pursue a last, desperate resistance to the zealots around him by holding onto his fading memories of a childhood and youth full of passion and the unrestrained joys of life.

As a novella, this rates little more than a three-star rating, given its limited storyline. It is most effective as a meditation on the horrors of radical Islam (or any system that cruelly represses the individual). It gains particular poignancy from the fact that the author, Djaout, was assassinated during a fanatical campaign against those, like him, who spoke out against the intolerance of radical Islam. The manuscript of this novella was discovered in his desk and published posthumously. A sad story.

[Lex Poot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeously written book at times poetic. It is describing the change of the nameless country into a religious extremist state with all the restrictions that comes with it prosecuting the people that do not abide to their norms. Obviously this is something that happens under any restrictive regime based on religion or doctrine.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tahar Djaout,The Last Summer of Reason. Marjolijn de Jager, translator. Ruminator Books, 1999/2003.

Tahar Djaout was an Algerian writer who was shot outside of his home by the Armed Islamic Group for his support of secularism and his criticism of fanaticism. A BBC documentary was made about his life called Shooting the Writer, which was, rather prophetically, introduced by Salman Rushdie, who has recently published his memoir about his brush with death, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Stab writers. Shoot writers. Silence them. Djaout and Rushdie stand as examples of the struggle for freedom of expression and freedom of the imagination.

Wole Soyinka wrote the Forward to The Last Summer of Reason, declaiming against the destructive intolerance that comes from ideology and religion, the willingness to sacrifice people individually and humanity generally for the sake of a narrow abstract belief: “The life-and-death discourse of the twenty-first century is unambiguously the discourse of fanaticism and intolerance.” Although, Djaout did not write these words, they speak to the purpose of The Last Summer of Reason.

The is the second bookstore novel that I have read recently. The first was the Galician Manuel Rivas’ The Last Days of Terranova, which I reviewed in September 2023. If Rivas’s novel is the story of an enduring resistance to fascism and censorship, The Last Summer of Reason is a tragic story about the inexorable defeat of freedom of thought and expression in the face of overwhelming intolerance.

The novel is about Boualem Dekker, a bookstore owner in an unnamed city in an unnamed country suffering a fundamentalist religious revolution. In the course of The Last Summer of Reason, Boualem is stripped of everyone and everything in his life, most poignantly the store full of books. Initially, Boualem can manage within this oppressive system, because he is unassuming and not an important figure. He is not a writer of books, does not create beauty, but is only a seller of books, so he can skirt through the city doing business without anyone of significance–i.e., the Vigilant Brothers, the religious police–noticing him. He is estranged from the world and feels he is living in a place of anonymous time, but he sweats out every road block waiting for the hammer to fall, because he knows the country is now run by what Djaout visualizes as The Omniscient Eye–like Foucault’s Panopticon or Tolkien’s Sauron–which illuminates everything, stripping it of everything and subordinating it to unquestioning faith, thought, and behavior.

Boualem’s “invisible” existence allows him to maintain his freedom of thought and imagination, a modicum of resistance, and during the last summer of reason, after which there are no seasons and no time, he takes his family on a vacation to an obscure beach, where they would not be under the gaze of the Omniscient Eye or the Vigilant Brothers. The relief/escape, though, is short-lived, for on the way home they witness the religious police doing its nasty work. It feels as if they net is closing, and while Boualem has the endurance to resist further his family embraces the fanaticism and leave him. He is alone, and his only companions are the books in his shop and his one steady customer, Ali Elbouliga, who plays the mandolin, one of those instruments of joy, culture and humanity that the new regime despises.

The most dangerous point in the story is when Boualem let’s down his guard. He is on an errand to retrieve some books. He thinks about the current leader, who has no books, and, as someone who loves books, Boualem feels utterly disconnected from him. Feeling this alienation, Boualem notices a hitchhiker and decides to pick him up, a compassionate, humane, neighborly act. The man is a fanatic, though, yet Boualem is happy to engage him in conversation/argument, questioning the man’s certainties to provoke some critical thinking and thoughtful interplay. Boualem just needed to talk to someone. The young man, though, is only willing to think and speak in certainties, and he responds to Boualem by judging him. When Boualem attempts familiarity and asks the young man if he has a fiancee the young man becomes nervous and raises his guard, but before he departs he scolds Boualem for not unquestioningly embracing faith. In the world of the Omniscient Eye, Boualem realizes that this conversation may have put him in danger. Solitude is a weakness.

The novel represents a slow, inexorable trap. At the macro-level, there is the Omniscient Eye, the Vigilant Brothers, the politicians who criticize science and subjugate it to holy truth, and the media that repeats that truth. At the local, there are the children who, caught up in fanatical beliefs and egged on by their fanatical parents, taunt and throw stones at Boualem. Children are the executors of a religious will which has been foisted upon them. Boualem realizes that he has been seen and the net tightens. The children remind Boualem of Koranic school, the mindless memorization of suras and being beaten. Boualem prefers Arab literature, which allows him to think and imagine, to travel beyond the confines of parroting faith, but his life now mirrors the trap of that old childhood trauma more than the adult freedoms to which he has been accustomed.

Most poignantly, the closing trap provokes a dream: Boualem is driving into the city at night and gets caught in a giant traffic jam; he finds himself confronted by the religious police, one of which is his son Kamal. He is taken to a tribunal where he watches a man extravagantly humiliate himself. When he sees Kamal go after another detainee, he decides that he can only save his son from his fanaticism by grabbing a gun from a guard and shooting Kamal. Boualem feels both relief and tragic pain, and then he wakes up from the dream. The boy’s final words: “Our life has been nothing but a gaping wound swarming with the maggots of delusion.” Psychologically, the trap is also closing.

Yet, he tries to recover some equanimity when he turns to memory and photographs to recover his past, but there aren’t enough memories or photographs to compensate for the barren present, and his memories become tainted. Boualem remembers when men and women could talk to each other on the street, uncovered, and not suffer from shame or fear. He can’t help reflect on the present, though, when women have been made in shadows and become the core of the culture of shame, the scapegoat, that grounds fanatical faith. Boualem’s memory of his daughter as a sweet, compassionate child links with her later denunciation of him and his love of philosophy. There is no escape.

An anonymous letter (unstamped, no addresses) warns him of his behavior and to amend it to use his intelligence and remaining time on earth to support a higher morality. Boualem takes the letter as a good sign. It is not a death threat, but the phone call in the middle of the night is. In the morning on the way to the bookstore, he hears the children who stalk him–and have thrown stones at him–say. “On the day of the Last Judgment, He will have heathens grow donkey’s ears.” Finally, the bookstore is closed by the local Community of Faith. Boualem is separated from his books. He is on the one had relieved that the ax has fallen, but the separation from his books is more difficult than the one from his family. He thinks about his adolescence, playing soccer and showing off for girls: all the energy of play and sexuality. He mourns that now children put all that energy into purity, faith, and punishing those who are not pure of faithful enough. Books had been a way for him to escape from a horrific reality, but now he doesn’t have them anymore.
When the end comes, Djaout does not land the final blow. In the last chapter. Boualem sits on a public bench overlooking the city as it slopes down to the sea. He remembers his childhood and youth, when the city was sensual and rational, human. Now the city has changed. The bearded militias do not fit the sensuality of a coastal city, and everyone is serious and pious and repressed. On public transportation, there is no longer any human warmth, a stray touch; there is no culture, no music, no singing. Everyone is certain but not Boualem, and he misses that questioning and doubt. In the emptiness of the city, Boualem imagines ghosts rather than real people, myth and poetry rather than the ugliness of faith. He feels that his childhood is betrayed. He know he could put on blinders but doesn’t. As he sits there, he figures that his books have been burned, but he wonders if there will be another spring.

Tahar Djaout doesn’t have Boualem Decker arrested, beaten, tried, convicted, and murdered, as I expected given the arc of the story. He does not close the trap, but leaves some thread of hope, more hope than Djaout himself experienced as he was shot outside his home in 1993.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was loving this little book about the terrifying and overwhelming reality of trying to resist against theocratic madness, and then I lost it on the subway. I had found it left out on the steps of a brownstone in Brooklyn in the summer of 2005, and had just gotten excited about reading it right now because it has correlations to the class on Political Theology I'm currently involved in... but alas, I have lost it, and I was almost finished. It must have been on some occasion that I was trying to read on my commute home, and then I must have fallen asleep as I often do after working at the madhouse for 10 hours, and it must have just slipped out of my grasp. A damn shame. If anyone has a copy, I'd love to finish it up, or perhaps I'll just drop by a bookstore to finish it. The sad part is that I don't feel compelled to finish the story, because I know what happened to the author and that is more than enough of a conclusion for me.... the world is filled with madness, and too often that madness masquerades as moral certitude.

--I found it mixed in with a bunch of other books I've acquired recently. And I'm glad I did, the writing of the last 35 pages is wonderfully poetic, and fitting conclusion to this harrowing novel.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for the "Great African Reads" group--left solely to my own devices, this would have been way too serious and challenging! But, thank you, Great African Reads, because I'm happy that I read it. The author, an Algerian, was killed in 1993 by militant Islamists who left the message that it was because his writing was dangerous. This manuscript was found among his things. It was difficult to read, because he really made me feel the oppression and hopelessness of a fundamentalist theocracy, in which people who do not conform are first shunned, then threatened, then battered, then killed. He brought home several perspectives I'd not even thought about before: his sorrow at how society molded his children, his withdrawal from even the pleasures of life, the numbness of surviving such a brutal situation. I did not like the English translation (from French), the language is stilted, and distances the reader from the character. Also, I speculate it would have been a different book if he'd lived to finish it. It's a mix of scenes with emotional immediacy that connect the reader to the character and long theses on the dangers of this type of government that do not involve the character or plot at all.

[Jason Seligson · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The Last Summer of Reason' is a short and strange read.

We see so many dystopias these days, but this book should really be discussed as separate and apart from that trend. Unlike a lot of those books, I thought this struck a really nice balance between plot and character. In fact, in 'Last Summer,' the society, overbearing and omnipotent though they are, aren't the most interesting parts of the story. Ultimately, it's the main character, Boulaem Yekker, who resonates the most. Boualem has pretty much lost everyone close to him, and is just trying to hold onto the pieces of his old life. Like '1984' or any other all-knowing entity, the government in 'Last Summer' is out to eradicate dangerous ideas like free thought,and the best way they saw fit to do that was by banning art and books. Books are one of the last vestiges of the world Boulaem once knew. I really liked his desire to protect stories, and I was genuinely moved by some of the passages where he looked back on the power that stories have, and how they've transformed him as a person.

Thanks to John Green for the recommendation, and for exposing me to a very important journalist/writer in Tahar Djaout.

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book came recommended by John Green as a book he loved but didn't think many people had read, let alone heard of. It's a beautifully written story of a man who owns a bookshop in a country recently taken over by conservative extremists who think art is evil. The entire book is an allegory for radical theocracies, and it makes sense given that Tahar Djaout was killed by Islamic extremists. I was surprised to see that it was such a slim and short novel, and I was surprised to read such beautiful writing after a forced "intellectual forward".

The main character spends most of the book pondering how his country became what it is, why art is dangerous for extremists, and the unfettered and liberated life he used to live with his family. The writing is gorgeous (despite the overabundance of commas and dependent clauses), and the story is touching. I wanted to highlight or underline so many passages, but because it was a library book, I couldn't.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

December 9, 2010
I never got around to writing a review for this after I read it. I'm considering a second reading, because I think it probably deserves more than the three stars I gave it. A few days ago I ran across something I had copied from the book. It's never too late to share gorgeous writing, so I wanted to post it here. I love the way he sums up the gifts each season has to offer:

"It is fall, with trees growing cold and leaves beginning to turn red. Nature is resting after having turned verdant and frolicked in the spring, shimmered with its hues of gold and glitter in the summer. Now there are shades of sweetness, nonchalance, and reconciliation. Nature is like a mature woman who still has some charms but has quieted down, has put aside her vanity, her makeup, and her seductiveness."

[Hans Ostrom · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best novels I've read in a long time, it concerns the rise of religious reactionary extremism in Algeria but indirectly shines light on America's struggle with puritanical, anti-intellectual extremism in the Party of Trump. Alas, Djaout was assassinated by extremists before the book was published. You won't regret reading this one. It's meditations on books and reading alone are worth the price of the ticket.

[Jason McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of the dangers of a society that has given itself completely to religious fervor. Ironically, and tragically, this novel was found amongst the authors papers after he was assassinated by an Islamic fundamentalist group.

[Melissa Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Summer of Reason reminds me that books are a powerful form of literature. Freedom of speech is so powerful and important so I can see why different governments or religions would find books of any type to make them scared. Books are shared around the world and people write about anything. Since books are usually easy to get a hold of, people of certain cultures or religions might change their views and with this book, they wanted to make sure that nothing of that nature could happen. Books are a symbol of resistance and truth. The authoritarian government in the story want to censor and control all the power that the society can read. They want all knowledge to be regulated. In this book, books and reading are acts of resistance and that is why the author was killed. As I stated above, the “resistance” represents a challenge to the government by challenging the “truth” that the government is telling them which leads to forbidden ideas and truths that the government is trying to hide. With reading books, he is trying to understand what is right and wrong and find his own personal truth. Not only does books make the people who read them the resistance but it also shows a connection to empathy. Through reading, they bridge the emotional and intellectual gaps imposed by their repressive environment, linking themselves with the experiences and thoughts of distant voices and past narratives. Books offer a rare refuge from the pervasive isolation, creating a sanctuary of shared understanding and companionship amidst the regime’s efforts to sever human bonds. For me, I feel that each page turned is not just the escape from the government but it is a profound connection with others. As an author, how Djaout presents and highlights that role of books and reading by bringing in human experiences and the truth and memory. He also makes the reader feel the empathy behind this book which then leads me to feel how powerful literature really is.

Djaout uses time and memory throughout this book. With knowing both of these we know that it serves as a crucial role to understand the personal and governed role that was faced from the authoritarian oppression. By highlighting the manipulation and preservation of time and memory, he invites us to see the ways of resistance and resilience is portrayed through literature. This systematic manipulation of memory serves to maintain the regime’s power by obscuring the truth of the past and distorting individuals' understanding of their present circumstances. His vivid recollections of past events and interactions become a battleground for maintaining his sense of self and defying the regime’s oppressive control. By holding onto these memories, the protagonist not only preserves his own identity but also engages in an act of rebellion, asserting his truth and resisting the regime’s efforts to erase and rewrite reality. The manipulation of time creates a sense of temporal dislocation, where the present becomes disjointed from the past and future, reflecting the government's efforts to rewrite history and reshape reality. Djaout also uses the passage of time as a symbol of resistance, with the protagonist's deliberate actions and engagement with forbidden texts serving as a subtle defiance against the oppression. Djaout wants us as readers to see time and memory not just as abstract concepts, but as critical elements in the struggle against authoritarian oppression. By highlighting their roles in shaping identity, resisting control, and preserving truth, he helps us reflect on the broader implications of these themes in our own lives and societies.

Boualem’s resistance is shown by intellectual defiance and personal sacrifice. Whereas his family makes a compliant approach. He has a strong personal commitment to freedom where his family just wants to stay safe and have a stable life with the oppressive rules. Boualem encourages forbidden texts and refuses to be controlled by the oppression. He wants to preserve the freedom and personal integrity of the society. He shows the power of knowledge and memory as a tool to resist the oppression. But then his family does not want to be a part of his resistance. They want to keep a normal life that is made by the oppression. They show that they will adapt and be part of whatever is thrown at them.

Asking us to give one word to how this novel makes us feel is extremely hard. I have a million words to describe it. But, as an aspiring author a word would have to be: thought-provoking.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Summer of Reason by the Algerian writer Tahrar Djaout (1954 – 1993).

Djaout was one of the most talented Algerian writers of the 1980s and early 1990s. Having witnessed the rise of the Islamic fundamentalism and religious fanaticism in Algeria, he always strongly supported secularism and freedom of speech. He was murdered by the Islamic extremists in 1993 because of his writing and beliefs.
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As Alek Baylee Toumi states in the introduction to this book, the spring of 1993 marked the beginning of the genocide of intellectuals in Algeria – the intellectuocide with the lists of people to eliminate posted in the mosques which is also described by Djaout's in The Last Summer of Reason. Other prominent Algerian intellectuals murdered by the religious extremists around that time were Hafid Senhadri, Djillali Lyabes, and Laadi Flici.

In his introduction Toumi quotes after Father Martin Niemoller’s famous poem:” (…) First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. (…) Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me”. Today in the Western world we witness a lot tolerance for intolerant views directed towards other minorities in the false name of political correctness or cultural difference – therefore, books such as The Last Summer of Reason should be widely read and the name of Tahar Djout should be better known.

When it comes to the book itself, words fail me to describe The Last Summer of Reason – it is in some way a very Orwellian story. If you enjoy Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World, then I would urge you to get yourself a copy of The Last Summer of Reason.

The Last Summer of Reason, which Djaout wrote in French, is his last book, which was published posthumously, and it is often considered as unfinished. The English translation includes a forward by the great Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka and the introduction by the Algerian literature professor, Alek Baylee Toumi. If you ever get a copy of this book, it is crucial to read words by Soyinka and Toumi – please don’t skip it.

The story chronicles the slow progression of intolerance through the eyes of a bookseller and how it is for an ordinary citizen to live under the oppressive religious and political dictatorship run by the extremists. This short novel evolves around Boualem Yekker, a bookseller living in the unnamed city somewhere in Algeria. His country has been slowly overtaken by the religious fundamentalists, the country that once was a republic with freedom of speech, secular values, equality rights for women and men. Boualem witnesses those changes around him, his daughter and son become brainwashed and subsequently they also join the flock of hate, opposing their father liberal and secular worldview. The world around him becomes “aphasic, opaque, and sullen; it is wearing mourning clothes”.

Boualem is alone facing the new religious dictatorship, but in contradictions to many of his fellow citizens, he peacefully resists the Islamic fundamentalism. In the book Boualem says at one point that the fundamentalists persecute “more than people’s opinions”, they persecute “people’s ability to create and propagate beauty”.

People no longer visit his bookshop to read or buy a book by Proust, Dostoyevsky, or Keats. The new order does not allow it – people are either too scared or they accepted a new religious order where there is no room for doubt or dissent. Boualem finds comfort in his books but also these books can put him in danger of losing his own life.

Djaout also describes the world where the youth including children behave like fanatics. Boualem starts receiving death threats because of selling books which do not comply with the belief system imposed by the religious fanatics.

Djaout portrays the changing landscape of Algeria of the early 1990s when books were burnt, intellectuals, journalists, writers were murdered, unveiled women were molested and beaten up, anyone who refused to think and act like the extremists was killed, music and mixed gender events were now forbidden, women had to reduce their presence to “nameless and faceless black shadow”, only a few types of clothing was permitted and everyone was obliged to wear them, the working hours were regulated by the rhythm of the prayers, all modern literature was forbidden except for books which comply with the Holy Book according to the extremists interpretation. Throughout the book we are in the mind of Boualem, we see what he thinks, what he dreams about, we are there when he remembers his beautiful childhood, but we also there when he experiences fear. He often feels small and vulnerable in face of the new reality. He was one of the people “suffering from a new malady: an overdeveloped memory”. As a bookseller, Boualem sells dreams in the form of essays, novels.. “Only dreaming is still allowed to those who know how to find refuge within themselves”.

In 1994 and 1995, Algeria witnessed more journalists being murdered than in any other country in the world. It is important to mention here that Djaout as well as many other murdered writers of that era often considered themselves Muslims, secular, tolerant, open-minded but their belief system did not comply with bigoted worldview of the religious and political extremists.
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Tahar Djaout, as Toumi writes, spoke out “a little too well and a little too loud, and he paid for it with his own life”. Tahar Djaout took a courageous stand against exclusion and intolerance. In one of his articles, “Hatred in Front of Us”, Djaout wrote: “If fascism triumphed in Germany at the end of the 1930s, it is not because there were a lot of fascists, but because there were not enough democrats”.

.He is an idealist and free thinker who strongly believes that as long as “music can transport the spirit, painting can make the core bloom with a rapture of colours, and poetry can make the heart pound with rebellion and hope”, the religious fundamentalists will gain nothing.
For Boualem, "books -- the closeness of them, their contact, their smell, and their contents -- constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror. They are the most pleasant and the most subtle means of traveling to a more compassionate planet” and they have been “the compost in which Boualem’s life ripened”. Boualem has a particularly strong affection for persecuted writers, he prefers Keats to Lord Byron, Rousseau to Voltaire, and Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy.

Boualem is extremely lonely, and notes "how little our own life belongs to us, to what extent is becomes useless as soon as one is confronted with oneself, freed from the conflicts, bondage, worries, or joys those to whom our destiny is linked impose on or bring to us. There is an uncontrollable panic in finding oneself alone with the world." He notices that there is a huge abyss separating him – who has read some thousands of books from Plato to Kawabata, Iqbal Kazteb, Octavio Pax and Kafka- from the men who never consulted any book – but it was them who gained power to govern the entire society. When thinking about all the changes around him, Boualem often reflects about his own relatives who did not have a single book in their home: “Every time he visited, he used to wonder how those people could live, without the smell of paper, without turning pages in which metaphors, ideas, and adventures were rustling”.

Boualem considered the separation from his books as “the greatest upheaval he had faced in his life”. In a real life, Djaout like the protagonist of his book, Boualem, also received many death threats before the Islamic fundamentalists killed him. Therefore, even more so The Last Summer of Reason should be read and re read.

Djaout showed the society that if it remains indifferent to the changes, to curtailment of basic freedom, the fanaticism will take over. He also outlines the difference between people who preach truth with certainty, and the ones who doubt - the importance of doubting and questioning is the basis for every civilized society: his city was divided into two antagonistic spaces: “one, the majority, filled with the men sparked by faith and certitude, and the other handed over to questioning, anxiety and bullying. The two do not communicate, do not look at each other, do not greet each other. And the one of the spaces has ended up reducing the other to silence before eradicating it.”

This book is not only a strong voice against Islamic fundamentalism, but also a strong voice against all forms of ideological fanaticism, including religious and political. Despite being written almost 30 years ago, this book is extremely relevant in the current times.

Djaout posed the question in his novel – how long would you resists the change that he experienced? How long would you resist to keep your basic freedom of thought?

The closing words of this novel written by Djaout shortly before being murdered: “Will there be another spring”?

This is a compelling and haunting piece of writing which deserves to be better known to the wider audience.