Here we are, in this spring 2020, cloistered, subject to calm. However, some sing and fly freely: birds, whose chirps invade the silence of traffic and populate our city dawn. “Anyone who falls has wings,” writes the poet Ingeborg Bachmann, who so consoles us. It is also this verse that Seham Boutata has put in place of The Melancholy of Maknin, a story that pays homage to a beautiful songbird.
“Maknine” is the Algerian name for goldfinch. It’s in the title of a song, Maknine Ezzine – “O pretty goldfinch” -, which Mohamed el-Badji composes in his cell on death row. Mohamed el-Badji will not be executed, Algeria will become independent and the song, cover by great Chaâbi singers like Mohamed el-Ankiss, will become a symbol, like the bird Seham Boutata portrays.
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