The two men examined the country that stretched out before them. Together, without a word said, they sat down on the grassy hill. The village behind them formed a shell of shadow and the puffs of fragrant cornstalk smoke drifted down from their side. The darkness grew thick below the ridge of the mountains, whose silhouettes, emerged in a tragic sky of no light nor shade, was turning intensely green. At the end of the plain, on a lake of dark grey lava, a tiny tip of light was flickering. The Villard farm; further away and among the haze rested the glow of Tclemen and the villages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen our duties are lacking\u201d, said the elder, \u201cwe\u2019re consumed by boredom. And we wail laments without knowing when to stop. We can\u2019t do anything about it. We coddle our boredom, we cherish it, we can live with it for a long time. One day, we will discover it, and if, on that day, when our duties do not appear clear to us, we will aimlessly drag out our existence until\u2026 until the Day of the Resurrection! But if I\u2019m not mistaken, the moment where we understand our new duties will arrive soon enough.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slimane Meskine was listening whilst constantly humming with his mouth closed; he was reflecting on the remarks of the old man. His smile faded away, bit by bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outlines of the country strengthened themselves against the backdrop of the summer fog. The fields were sailing, having broken their moorings, and clinging to its clay keel, the lower village of Bni Boublen was taking off, cruising in midair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Competition text:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Les deux hommes examin\u00e8rent le pays qui s\u2019\u00e9tendait devant eux. Simultan\u00e9ment, sans mot dire, ils s\u2019assirent sur la pente herbeuse. Le village, dans leur dos, formait une conque d\u2019ombre. Les bouff\u00e9es d\u2019une fum\u00e9e odorante de tiges de ma\u00efs s\u2019abattaient de leur c\u00f4t\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n L\u2019obscurit\u00e9\u0301 s\u2019\u00e9tait \u00e9paissie au-dessous de la cr\u00eate des monts dont le profil \u00e9mergeait dans un ciel tragique, sans clart\u00e9\u0301, sans ombre, qui verdissait immens\u00e9ment. Au fond de la plaine, sur un lac de lave gris sombre, clignotait une minuscule pointe de lumi\u00e8re : la ferme Villard ; plus loin, dans une brume, reposaient les lumi\u00e8res de Tlemcen et des villages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Quand les devoirs nous manquent, dit l\u2019ancien, nous sommes d\u00e9vor\u00e9s d\u2019ennui. Et nous chantons des complaintes sans savoir quand il faut s\u2019arr\u00eater. Nous n\u2019y pouvons rien. Nous dorlotons notre ennui, nous le ch\u00e9rissons. On peut vivre longtemps avec \u00e7a. Un jour on le d\u00e9couvrira et si, ce jour-l\u00e0\u0300, nos devoirs ne nous apparaissent pas clairement, nous tra\u00eenerons inutilement notre existence jusque… Jusqu\u2019au jour de la R\u00e9surrection ! Mais si je ne crois pas mentir, le moment o\u00f9 nous comprendrons nos nouveaux devoirs sera t\u00f4t arriv\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Slimane Meskine \u00e9coutait sans cesser de chantonner \u00e0 bouche ferm\u00e9e ; il r\u00e9fl\u00e9chissait aux propos du vieillard. Son sourire se dissipa peu a\u0300 peu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Les contours du pays s\u2019enfonc\u00e8rent \u00e0 l\u2019arri\u00e8re-plan des brouillards d\u2019\u00e9t\u00e9. Les champs voguaient, ayant rompu leurs amarres. Agripp\u00e9 \u00e0 sa quille d\u2019argile, le village de Bni Boublen inf\u00e9rieur prenait le d\u00e9part, cinglait en plein ciel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pola (Y12) has done a fantastic translation of L\u2019Incendie by Mohammed Dib (1954) Pola’s Translation: The two men examined the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,72,68],"tags":[172,175,7],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-french-modern-foreign-languages","category-literature","category-modern-foreign-languages","tag-anthea-bell","tag-competition-success","tag-french","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1959,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/1959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.whs-blogs.co.uk\/linguistica\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/mohammed.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n