French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud announced on Wednesday that he has been sentenced to three years in prison and fined five million Algerian dinars (approximately $38,000) by an Algerian court for his novel "Houris" — the book that won France's most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt, in 2024.
Daoud, who lives in France, revealed the verdict — delivered on Tuesday by a court in Oran, Algeria's second-largest city on the northwestern coast — on the social media platform X. The novel, whose title translates into English as "Virgins," centres on the survivors and victims of Algeria's so-called "black decade," a brutal civil conflict of the 1990s in which an estimated 200,000 people were killed as the military-backed government fought an Islamist insurgency. The crisis began in 1991 when the government cancelled legislative elections after Islamists won the first round of voting, triggering years of violent conflict.
Daoud was convicted under Algeria's Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, a law adopted by referendum in 2005 that granted broad pardons to both Islamist fighters and security forces, and which effectively criminalises public discussion of the civil war. "The text punishes any public mention of the civil war," Daoud wrote. "Ten years of war, nearly 200,000 dead according to estimates, thousands of terrorists granted amnesty … and only one guilty party: a writer." The charges against him include undermining national unity and insulting public institutions.
The sentencing adds to a growing list of legal pressures facing the author. Algeria issued two international arrest warrants against him in May 2025, and authorities have also threatened to strip him of his Algerian nationality. Daoud's case draws comparisons to that of fellow French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who faced similar legal jeopardy in Algeria after his own critical writings.
The verdict is being closely watched as a barometer of press and artistic freedom in Algeria, and arrives amid broader tensions between Algeria and France. Daoud has built his reputation as a writer unafraid to challenge orthodoxies — on Islam, French colonialism, and the conduct of Algeria's contemporary leadership — making him both celebrated in European literary circles and a polarising figure at home. Because he resides in France, the prison sentence cannot be immediately enforced, but the international arrest warrants and the threat to his nationality signal a significant escalation in the Algerian authorities' efforts to pursue him across borders.