Ibn Ibn Battuta

Book Launch: "Inside the Battle of Algiers" - Facebook video
Posted by Ibn Ibn Battuta on Thursday, September 7, 2017

(Video by Allaqta. Subtitles enabled by default. Video also available on YouTube.)

Inside the Battle of Algiers is officially here! After two long years of translation, I'm excited to share this book—and an important chapter of Algeria's history, from one of its most prominent heros—with the English-speaking world.

Purchasing Information
You can purchase the book today in paperback or e-book form via:

the book's publisher, Just World Books,
Amazon.com or your local Amazon site, and
other major booksellers worldwide. (If your favorite bookseller doesn't stock it, invite them to order here today.)

U.S. Book Tour (UPDATED)
This month I will also accompany Madame Drif on a book tour to several cities on the US east coast. Books will be available for sale and signing at each event:

Washington, DC

Monday, Sept. 18, 1:30pm | Woodrow Wilson International Center | RSVP here
Tuesday, Sept. 19, 6:00pm | Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Mortara Center for International Studies | RSVP here

New York, NY

Thursday, Sept. 21, 12:30pm | New York University Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies | Event details
Thursday, Sept. 21, 7:00pm | Alwan Center for the Arts | RSVP here
Tuesday, Sept. 26, 7:00pm | Nomad Restaurant | RSVP here
Friday, Sept. 29, 6:15pm | Columbia University | Details here
Sunday, Oct. 1, 6:00pm | Anthology Film Archives | Tickets here

Boston, MA

Monday, Oct. 2, 4:00pm | Harvard University Kennedy School of Government | Event details
Wednesday, Oct. 4, 12:00pm | Tufts University Fletcher School | Details here

Finally, if you missed my behind-the-scenes look at the translation process, I think you'll find it an enjoyable introduction to the book: "Translating Madame Drif".

Enjoy your reading!

Six decades after executing the attack that made her a wanted woman and changed her country's history, Zohra Drif has no apologies and, at 82, remains every bit the warrior. (Photo: A. Farrand, 2017)

"I have a bomb down in the basement. I should really go get it out of there."

The dignified elderly woman seated beside me on the sofa tried to swallow a chuckle as my gaze snapped up from the scrawled-over pages spread across my lap. "Pardon?" I stammered out.

It was a Saturday morning back in March, and I was in a sunlit home on a serene Algiers hilltop, fully absorbed in debating final edits to my host's memoir, when she so casually mentioned the bomb.

But her admission shouldn't have surprised me, since this was no average octogenarian. No, this was Zohra Drif, the freedom fighter who, as a young law student in 1956, carried out the bombing that would prove one of the most decisive acts of Algeria's liberation war.

"Oui, j'ai une bombe," she confirmed, in her typical flawless French. "Well, it's a sort of shell of one…" Years ago, she explained, a farmer had offered it to her husband, Rabah Bitat, one of the original architects of Algeria's revolution and, like her, a prominent post-independence leader. "The freedom fighters used to stash them in private families' homes for safekeeping from the French patrols." Returning the bomb he had faithfully kept hidden away for decades was this farmer's way of showing his loyalty to his country and its revolutionary heroes.

"Anyway," she continued, "It's a kind of cylinder shape, and when you shake it you hear all sorts of nails and things rattling inside..."

When you shake it. Because of course, being the fearless Zohra Drif, she would shake the bomb.