Les Oliviers de la Justice

Someone said we had to write a press release for the newspapers, and we wrote it on the balcony, using the customary words. "... He was one of those first-generation settlers who, through their labor, fertilized the Mitidja. With him, one of the last figures of that generation passes away..." Despite the conventionality of the words, it was true. It summarized his life well.

Les Oliviers de la Justice (1959) is a book of tenderness and emotion, sometimes of anger – but above all of recognition, where the real – and often secret and "underground" – relationships between Muslims and Europeans are depicted. Thus, through a particular experience, a portrait of the Algerian soul and sensitivity is drawn.

The author wanted to make the truth sing, that of men – the one that makes one understand and love.

It is therefore, despite everything, a book of hope.

With a new preface by the author and several documents on the film by James Blue and Jean Pélégri Les Oliviers de la Justice filmed in Algeria in late 1961 and early 1962 as well as photos from the film and of the Pélégri farm (taken in April 1990)