Not a great many English-speaking Americans — there still are some — have heard of Boualem Sansal, fewer have read his remarkable novels; so maybe the simplest way to introduce him is to say he is Algeria's Alexander Solzhenitsyn, notwithstanding sharp differences.

Each incurred the displeasure of his country's ruling cliques, who were only too happy to be rid of their troublesome truth-seekers by exile forced or voluntary. Solzhenitsyn spent years in the gulag prison system, Sansal had a successful career in science and civil service. Both objected to official histories and found their work banned, their lives endangered. Sansal, who writes in French, moved to France, which granted him dual-citizenship this year. The enduring call of home brought Solzhenitsyn back to Russia after the collapse of Soviet communism; Sansal made visits to his native Tissemsilt wilaya (province).
He reacted angrily when a literary prize he was awarded was withdrawn after ... saying nice things about Israel.
A gentle, modest man with a sense of humor, Boualem Sansal would reject the comparison. The Soviet rulers forced Russia's conscience into exile (he returned after the fall of the USSR and died in his homeland); Sansal, trained as an engineer, had a successful career in Algeria before leaving Algeria of his own accord (though not without the encouragement of threats, official opprobrium, the banning of his books), but he made periodic visits.
Disembarking from a Paris-Algiers flight in late November, he was arrested; he has not been heard from since.  Reportedly the authorities are testing the political winds and preparing formal charges that could fall under a sub paragraph of Article 87 that defines certain opinions as acts of terrorism, and as such,  a Stalinoid catch-all for dissenters that includes expressing opinions that might endanger the national security, which can be prosecuted as capital crimes.
In short, they could hang him.
Given the Algerian state's hypersensitivity to ...