L’Autre Rivage

Andrée Montero is from Oran. Her novel may first appear as a testimony to the Algerian tragedy and the misfortune of the victims of the great exodus in the summer of 1962.

However, while the author of L'Autre Rivage has succeeded in making the drama of displacement and torturing nostalgia perceptible, her most certain merit lies elsewhere. It lies in her way of showing her heroine astray, lost in a terrible loneliness, wandering through temptations, obstacles, and shadows, often ready to yield yet refusing defeat each time. Ariane lucidly resists the Minotaur and finds, through courage and faith in destiny, the small glimmer that finally leads out of the labyrinth.

This is also why, once the book is closed, it still exudes for a long time that overwhelming scent of life of which Camus speaks, which is the scent of cities as well as living works, where the heart beats faster and the blood boils. (Emmanuel Roblès)

New edition, fully revised and corrected.