A mystery novel loved in Algeria and already praised by French critics finally arrives in Italian. On a “national night”, men and boys move circumspectly, like shadows in search of salvation, certain, however, that they cannot survive a tragic destiny, made up of gunshots, executions, murderers. It is the night that Algeria has lived through all the nineties, overwhelmed by one of the bloodiest of civil wars. In an Algiers loved and described in great detail, Adlène Meddi breathes life into the youngsters, the alter egos of his generation, the protagonists of 1994, the Algerian writer’s latest detective story.

Adlène Meddi, born in 1975 in El Harrach, a suburb east of Algiers, is a French-speaking Algerian journalist, reporter and writer. He studied journalism and media sociology at the University of Algiers and EHESS in Marseille. Since 2009 he has been editor-in-chief of the weekly El Watan. He also collaborates with Le Point magazine and the Middle East Eye website. In 2002 he published his first thriller, Le casse tête turc with Barzakh. In 2008 he released La prière du maure, also through Barkakh, while in 2016 together with Mélanie Matarese he wrote Jours tranquilles à Alger, published by Riveneuve. His third polar, 1994, released in the original language in 2017 again through Barzakh, won the Transfuge Prize 2018 as best French-language thriller.