The Fertility of Evil

“The sun-drenched city of Oran, known to Americans as the setting for Camus’s The Plague, comes alive here in a detective novel that doubles as powerful social critique. The genial and all too human Colonel Soltani of the anti-terrorism squad follows the tragic missteps of a group of men and women who fought in solidarity for Algerian freedom only to destroy one another over six decades of secrets and lies. With a novelist’s ear for dialogue and an anthropologist’s understanding of everyday life, Amara Lakhous invites us into the backrooms of an Algerian elite at war with itself.” —Alice Kaplan, author of Seeing Baya: Portrait of an Algerian Artist in Paris

Praise for Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio:

“The author’s real subject is the heave and crush of modern, polyglot Rome, and he renders the jabs of everyday speech with such precision that the novel feels exclaimed rather than written.” —The New Yorker

“Teases out intriguing psychological and social insight alongside a playful whodunit plot, exposing the power of fear, racial prejudice, and cultural misconception to rob a neighborhood of its humanity.” —Publishers Weekly