Writer and journalist, Mohammed Aïssaoui was born in Algiers. He earned a master’s degree in Economic and Social Administration and a master’s in Political Science from the University of Nanterre. He also studied at the French Institute of Journalism and has been writing for Le Figaro Littéraire since 2001. After his anthology Le goût d’Alger (Mercure de France, 2006), he wrote six books, including L’affaire de l’esclave Furcy (Gallimard), which won the 2010 Renaudot Prize for Essay and the RFO Prize, L’Étoile jaune et le Croissant (Gallimard, 2014), and Les funambules (Gallimard), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Goncourt Prize. In these works, he carries out meticulous work of memory and justice, honoring Muslims and Arabs deserving of the title “Righteous Among the Nations,” a Réunionese slave who sued his master and demanded his freedom, as well as those who are marginalized and excluded, whose cracks place them precariously on the tightrope of life, always at risk of falling.
It is no surprise that he is the author of Dictionnaire amoureux d’Albert Camus (Plon, 2023), written with the cooperation of Catherine Camus, the daughter of the Nobel Prize winner, who gave him access to exclusive documents.
In French.
