Saïd Khatibi is a novelist, travel writer, translator, and journalist born in 1984 in Bou Saâda, Algeria. He currently lives in Slovenia. He writes in Arabic and French and translates between both. His novel Sarajevo Firewood, was shortlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and was his first novel translated into English. His other novels are The Book of Errors which was published in 2013, and Forty Years Waiting for Isabelle which won the 2017 Katara Award for Arabic Novels. He has written a travel book about the Balkans, The Inflamed Gardens of the East, 2015, and has written extensively on raï music, including a book (Wedding Fire, 2010). The End of the Sahara won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award Young Author category in 2023.

The End of the Sahara won the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2023.

"The Arab noir renaissance deserves more attention. Its writers conjure up engrossing characters while shining a brilliant, unyielding light on sloth and corruption across the Middle East. The End of the Sahara unfolds in a small desert town in Algeria in 1988, just before the state massacred hundreds of demonstrators. A shepherd discovers the dead body of Zakia Zaghouani, the singer at the Sahara Hotel. Her room contains a letter addressed to Bachir, her lover, who is swiftly arrested and waterboarded. The torture described is routine, almost unremarkable, as Khatibi layers the story with vivid detail. Alexander Elinson's translation from the Arabic feels lively and authentic. Khatibi handles each character with care and skill, unpeeling their personal stories, their web of connections and the grim reality of life in a one-party dictatorship. Financial Times: Best Thrillers of the Month

"Elegant prose and a keen sense of place help bring the narrative to life. It's a solid whodunit that doubles as a captivating look at a country in transition." Publishers Weekly

KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW "In the fall of 1988, shortly before the outbreak of mass youth riots in Algeria over unemployment and a lack of basic goods, a town's collective anger over the murder of a nightclub singer reflects what's to come. An absorbing novel that should broaden Khatibi's following."

"Evocative, brooding, and perfectly hard-boiled!"--- CrimeReads

The End of the Sahara by Said Khatibi, translated from Arabic by Alexander Elinson, selected as one of '10 Noir Novels to Kill For' by The Markaz Review. "The novel highlights the enduring scars of gender-based violence, historical and contemporary, while showcasing resilient, resourceful women who drive the narrative forward. From mothers protecting their families to fiery young lawyers seeking justice, the female characters deliver some of the story's most unforgettable moments, with shared wit and incisive dialogue."--Markaz Review

"Suspicions, shady secrets, surprising connections and simmering social unrest in 1980s Algeria -- this meaty literary murder mystery throngs with thought-provoking might." Set across the forty days preceding Algeria's 1988 October Riots, when thousands of young people protested the country's one-party political system, Saïd Khatibi's The End of the Sahara is sure to grip fans of thoughtful crime while also satisfying readers who are into pacey literary fiction with socio-political bite.

The End of the Sahara amounts to a crime thriller with tremendous emotional and political resonance.--LoveReading

"The body of a nightclub singer is found in wasteland outside a desert town, a long way south of Algiers. It's 1988, and Algeria has become an unruly country since decolonisation; the government is Socialist in name, but conditions for ordinary people are dire. As one character says, life here is a case of dog-eat-dog. Which is how a respectable Arab girl came to be singing in a nightclub under an assumed name in order to escape her own family, who would incarcerate her as a whore.

The reader is spellbound, drawn into this other world where nothing is quite as it appears, where euphemisms abound in juxtaposition with crude intimacies; where love affairs are conducted by men with extraordinary delicacy, the same men who can suddenly erupt into fits of violent rage, spitting obscenities. Repression is rife. The West has psychiatrists and counsellors; Algeria has to make do with faith healers. One is left with an uneasy sense of the reality of a country in chaos: the old Arab world in collision with Western versions of democracy, and no one having any idea how to deal with it except to revolt. The End of the Sahara was civil war. ...certainly a novel that inspires the reader to seek out more from this perceptive author." ---SHOTS Magazine

"Original, exceptional, engaging, deftly crafted, "The End of the Sahara" by Said Khatibi is the story of how on an early autumn morning in 1988, on the outskirts of an unnamed Algerian city, a shepherd stumbles upon the lifeless body of Zaza Zaghouani, a stunning nightclub singer who left her hometown seeking a brighter future. Showcasing Said Khatibi's genuinely compelling, narrative-driven storytelling style, "The End of the Sahara" is a singularly riveting, suspense-driven read from start to finish. Unreservedly recommended for personal reading lists and community library Historical Murder Mystery collections.".---MBR (Midwestern Book Review)

Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

Pub date: 2026-03-24

Length: 336 pages