Chroniques: Selected Columns, 2000–2016

Algerian journalist Daoud, whose debut novel, The Meursault Investigation, won France's Prix Goncourt in 2015, began his career as a columnist for the Algerian French-language daily Le Quotidien d'Oran, going on to write for major publications such as Le Monde, Le Point, and the New York Times. This compilation of short newspaper columns and critical essays published between 2010 and 2016 features themes that include the need for modernizing voices in the Muslim world, political Islam and reactionary extremism, fundamentalism and zealotry, tolerance and the secular ideal, women's rights, hopes kindled by the Arab Spring revolution, the migrant and refugee crisis, and the state of Algeria's political and religious authorities. Most of the pieces are shrewd and sharp but not without controversy. Nevertheless, to Daoud's fans, he is a champion for speaking unpleasant truths relentlessly, even recklessly—not from exile but from his country's home base. While Zerofsky's introduction and appended glossary are helpful, footnotes and background material would have provided beneficial context for each of the essays.