Bitter Lemon Press has announced that it has acquired World English Language rights to The End of the Sahara by the Algerian writer Saïd Khatibi who won the Young Author category of the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) with this novel in 2023. We are very proud to be publishing our first novel translated from the Arabic. A crime novel set in Algeria during a difficult period for the country, written with verve and sensitivity by a young Algerian author. As perfect a fit with our list as we could imagine. It will be translated be Alexander Elinson and published in early 2026.
The End of the Sahara takes place in the forty days leading up to the October riots that exploded in Algeria on October 5, 1988. On an early autumn morning, on the outskirts of an unnamed Algerian city, a local shepherd stumbles across a dead body. The body is identified as that of Zakia Zaghouani, a famous nightclub singer who ran away from her hometown and family, seeking a brighter future. The following investigation exhumes decades of personal and interpersonal tensions among the characters and local dramas that are inextricably connected to the national and international stage.
