Volume 32, Number 19 · December 5, 1985
Algeria Rising
By Alistair Horne
Along the coast, some fifty miles westward from Algeria's capital, Algiers, lie the Roman ruins of Tipasa. There are few more idyllic spots in the entire Mediterranean, and it provoked from Albert Camus one of his most eloquent and nostalgic essays. Writing almost exactly half a century ago in the tranquil prewar days of colonial Algeria, Camus described euphorically how he had experienced 'the happy lassitude of a wedding day with the world.' Tipasa is an absinthe perfumed paradise of expressionist colors. A peacock-colored sea sensuously 'sucks with the noises of kisses.' Vast ochre amphora, and columns made golden by the sun, contrast joyously with the silvery olives that spring from an iron-red soil. 'Here the gods themselves serve as tryst-places, or beds,' Camus wrote. 'Happy is he among the living who has seen such things.'
Feature, 3464 words
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