We can all share the anguish in the downfall of a simple soul — for movie-goers Brando’s despairing ‘I coulda’ been a contender!’ in On the Waterfront still resonates — but I have a problem with heroic thickos: Othello, so easily duped; purblind Lear… So I’m ambivalent about the leading character in the new novel by the French-Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra — his wife’s name, adopted by Mohammed Moulessehoul to evade the military censors when he was an officer in the Algerian army. The award-winning author of more than 20 novels, most notably The Swallows of Kabul, he now lives in France but retains the pseudonym.
The Angels Die is the story of Turambo, a slum-pup named after a village wiped out in a mudslide, who stubbornly clings on through everything, from shoe-shining and near slavery, to make it to the high life.
We first meet him as he walks, chains clanking, from the death cell to the waiting guillotine.
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