A novel by Omar Dakhane · 11 of 16
The Counterfeit Saint
Set in Tiaret, then a village no one has heard of
Hamid Touati is a con man. Not a great one, a good enough one.
The story
He sells land he doesn't own, forges documents with calligraphy he taught himself, and has been running from the consequences of his own talent for thirty years across the wilayas of Algeria. When his latest scheme collapses in Tiaret and he needs to disappear, he wraps himself in a white sheet and hides in an abandoned mausoleum in a village no one has heard of. By morning, the village has decided he is a saint. The offerings begin. The miracles, which Hamid is not performing, begin too. And Hamid discovers that the hardest con he has ever run is the one where he tries to convince an entire village that he is not what they need him to be.
A novel about faith, fraud, and the terrifying possibility that pretending to be good might be the same thing as being good.
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