With more than a thousand publishers from 61 countries and in the midst of an unexpected controversy, the Algiers International Book Fair launched its 26th edition this Thursday in the capital of Algeria, marked this year by a strong presence of African literature and the absence of the Nobel Prize in Literature Annie Ernaux (France, 1940), who was denied a visa to enter the country by the Government of that African nation, a former French colony. The French newspaper Le Monde revealed last Wednesday that the Algerian authorities did not accept the visa of the acclaimed author of "The Years" and inferred that this decision could be related to a column signed in May by Ernaux in that same medium; although the Algerian press dismissed that possibility and reported that the consular authorities are still processing the application, submitted 48 hours in advance instead of the week required by the procedure. While Le Monde maintained that the rejection of Ernaux's visa responds to the article that the Nobel Prize winner wrote months ago in that same medium together with a dozen intellectuals calling for the release of the Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi, whom they defined as a "prisoner of conscience." ", the Algerian newspaper Tout Sur l'Algérie denied the reason and reported that the consular authorities are still processing the visa application, which was submitted 48 hours in advance instead of a week as required by the procedure. In the article cited by Le Monde, the 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, the American philosopher Noam Chomsky and the British filmmaker Ken Loach, among others, asked the Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune for the release of El Kadi (64), director of the independent media Maghreb Emergent and Radio M, sentenced in April to five years in prison and a fine of 4,750 euros, on charges of receiving "funds from abroad for propaganda purposes" and of "carrying out acts that undermine national security." In that article, the signatories denounced the judicial harassment and insecurity to which those investigated for alleged crimes of conscience are exposed. The French newspaper pointed out that the Justice ordered the dissolution of "Interface Médias", the publishing company of those two media outlets directed by El Kadi and closed at the time of his arrest and stressed that the defense of the convicted man assures that it is a political process, due to the editorial line of the journalist, critical of the current Algerian government.