The bookstore, a space to examine literary commitment in Tahar Djaout’s Le Dernier été de la raison

In his last, unfinished, novel, the Algerian writer Tahar Djaout sent his writing into a brief cycle of literary engagement with a narrative immersed in the violent unrest of the Algerian “Black Decade.” Holed up in his bookstore, Djaout’s main character rejects the fanaticism imposed by the Vigilant Brothers. Yet Le Dernier été de la raison lends itself to a more complex reading that questions the real effectiveness of literary engagement during a dark period of Algerian history.