Amal Bouchareb - سَكرات نجمة

'Sakarat Nedjma' (Flickers of a Star) was THE thriller of 2015. Bouchareb has woven a very entertaining and daring story around the “Khamsa” (aka the Hand of Fatma), its meaning and the enigma of why it features right in the middle of our Algerian passports, in gold among the green, below the moon crescent and star, above sun rays, aside wheat and olive branches.

Ilyas Mady is found stabbed in his grandfather’s apartment in Telemly, Algiers. Mady is both Italian and Algerian, and his dual citizenship puts pressure on Inspector Ibrahim and his team to find the murderer. Ilias Mady was a world-famous artist who taught art in Turin, and had come back to Algiers at the request of Sheikh Ben Haroun to solve a puzzle. What is the origin of the Khamsa? For Sheikh Abdallah, a historian specialising in ancient secrets, it is originally a Jewish symbol, each fingers of that precious palm representing one of the books of Torah: the Exegesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Devarim. For young Ishaq, symbols don’t have a single point of origin, they come from a shared past in which members of the community have participated. When Ibrahim finds Ben Haroun’s number in the dead man’s pocket and traces Ermano Bergonzi’s calls to Turin, the net takes on an international angle and the enigma becomes deadly.

Sakarat Nedjma is Amal Bouchareb’s first novel. She published a collection of short stories last year. Bouchareb was born in Damascus. She has lived in Italy for many years.


Chapeau bas à l'excellente auteure Amel Bouchareb et son premier roman publie en 2015, le thriller سَكرات نجمة ! Si vous ne l'avez pas lu, je vous le recommande.