Our Riches

Reviews

"Fascinating: Adimi synthesizes the private minutiae of the great and sometimes forgotten publisher Edmond Charlot with the history of the times in a suprisingly light, almost breezy fashion, making this a fast, interesting, and engaging read." — Adam Hocker, Albertine Bookstore

"As Adimi’s story moves slowly toward Algerian independence, there is an ever-present beauty not only in Chris Andrew’s beautiful translation of her work from French to English, but in the seamless way that she weaves her story through time." — Arab News

"Our Riches reminds readers of the printed word’s ability to impart new ideas and shape public opinion." — Christian Science Monitor

"A splendid declaration of the love of literature, the only link between epochs and beings." — Elle

"An understated, lyrical story of reading and resistance over the tumultuous generations." — Kirkus (starred)

"A subject in gold: it was necessary to instill a rhythm, an experience, a tension, even to shake up the hourglass of time. Kaouther Adimi, born fifty years after the mythical bookshop, succeeds brilliantly at this triple jump." — Le Figaro

"In this engaging and place-rich book, it is Adimi’s project to marry the sensuality and the intellect that young Camus fretted over, and to show that there are as many ways to be a bibliophile as to be a sensualist." — Abby Walthausen, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Thanks to France's 132-year colonization of Algeria, the two countries are thoroughly intertwined — a relationship Adimi explores with nuance and determination in her third novel, Our Riches, newly translated by the excellent Chris Andrews." — Lily Meyer, NPR

"Adimi’s confident prose displays Ryad and Charlot’s emotional depth while nimbly shuttling the reader through nearly a century of history. This is a moving tribute to the enduring power of literature. " — Publishers Weekly

"The truly potent effect of the book is that by taking on literary history from the underbelly of the French nation — from the colony just across the sea — Adimi confronts us with episodes that are simply never spoken of in France: the grand celebration of the end of World War II, in May 1945, which, in Algeria, turned into a massacre by the colonial administration; another massacre, this time in Paris, in 1961, of Algerian protesters, who were thrown into the Seine by French police officers. It is in unhappy nations, we are meant to understand, that history is a relentless companion." — Elisabeth Zerofsky, The New York Times

"This stirring novel, which was shortlisted for the Prix Goncourt, is based on the life of Edmond Charlot, the publisher best known for discovering Albert Camus and for opening the famed bookstore Les Vraies Richesses in Algiers, in 1936." — The New Yorker

"If you’re in a bookshop browsing, then Our Riches is for you, by definition. A beautiful little novel about books, history, ambition and the importance of literature to everyone, especially people who are trying to find a voice." — Nick Hornby

"Adimi both restores Charlot’s ruined archive and safeguards the neighborhood’s story using her own technology of recollection and organization: a novel." — Seth Kimmel, Public Books