ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — As one of the Arab world’s largest book fairs opens in Algeria on Wednesday, there is one conspicuous absence. French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud, who won France’s most prestigious literary award earlier this week, was not invited to this year’s event.

Algerian Kamel Daoud wins the Prix Goncourt for his novel Houris, a searing account of his country’s 1990s conflict.

Kamel Daoud became the first author of Algerian origin to win the Prix Goncourt, France’s top literary prize. Daoud was awarded the accolade for a novel based on Algeria’s bloody civil war between Islamist militias and the country’s army in the 1990s.

French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud on Monday won France's top literary prize, the Goncourt, for a novel centred on Algeria's civil war between the government and Islamists in the 1990s, organisers