In 1962 the library at the University of Algiers was burned to the ground, turning hundreds of thousands of books to dust. But it was overshadowed by Algeria’s independence from the French, and was largely forgotten. So one man has made it his mission to answer a simple question: are these books really gone? Or were they smuggled out by the extremists who set the library on fire in the first place?

Thank you to Samir Hachani and Bruno Boulanger for speaking to us for this episode. Thank you also to Dr. Andrew Bellisari, and Rayane from @ze.art.nerd. 

This episode was produced by Zeina Dowidar and edited by Dana Ballout. Additional support from Alex Atack and Nadeen Shaker, fact checking by Deena Sabry, with sound design and mixing by Paul Alouf. Additional production support from Abdelraouf Meraga.

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Find a transcript for this episode here.