As the topic of colonialism becomes more common in society at large, more content is readily available to us than ever before that sheds light on historical events and the lived experiences from the past and today. One of those pieces of content is the book “Tomorrow They Won’t Dare to Murder Us,” by Joseph Andras, which recounts the story of Fernand Iveton who was executed by the French Army during the Algerian War.

While I was aware of the Algerian War, I don’t recall seeing many books or movies on the topic growing up (or even still today). There are clearly many reasons for this, but you would have to assume that part of this obviously is due to the fact that, like all countries, France has tried extremely hard to downplay or outrightly ignore their part in colonialism. So, I appreciated the prompt to not only read a new book, but to also take the time to read up on this part of history.

What is “Tomorrow” About?

So, now that we know the time period this book takes place, let’s talk about the plot:

Iveton, a pied-noir or someone of European descent born in Algeria, was a communist and supporter of Algerian independence. In November 1956, he planted a bomb in the factory he worked at outside of Algiers, which was timed to go off after hours to avoid any casualties. Because Iveton was monitored by the police at the time, he was found out and the bomb was defused. Regardless of the facts, Iveton was brutally tortured, quickly tried and executed. While it was understood by all thoughts in power that the facts of Iveton’s case should have pardoned him from execution, it was noted by his lawyers that this “happened at the wrong time,” as the public treated this as an extension of other events that happened around the time which resulted in casualties instead of looking at it as its own case.

Throughout the book, the storyline jumps from current day (in prison) to the past, telling the story of how he met and fell in love with his wife, Hélène. At first, the two storylines felt interesting, but potentially unnecessary together. However, it all ties together at the end when Iveton essentially says recounting these stories and piecing them together while awaiting his fate is helping him cope with reality.

This book does a fantastic job of telling the events in a very no-nonsense way. When the torture Iveton endured at the hands of the French army is explained, it isn’t written to be fantastical or gruesome for the sake of it. Instead it’s very matter of fact, which feels more real and impossible to ignore the severity of what happened. I think that this “matter of fact” tone shows throughout the book in a very interesting way.

Because this is a real life person, you know how the book will end. But that doesn’t stop you from being very invested in the future of the people in the story. You want to change it, but there’s no hope for that.

My Thoughts on the Book

In all honesty, I picked up this book because I saw it on the Red Love Book Club list. And though the topic is very interesting to me, it isn’t necessarily something I probably would have picked out on my own. Plus, the style of this book was really difficult for me to get into at first and I sort of wanted to put it down… but it was so short it felt like I could zip through it in a couple of hours.

Speaking of the style, I’m not entirely sure what it would be called, but the writing was a bit much at times. There are no quotations and it flips back and forth between events without notice and there are sentences where multiple people are somehow speaking in the same sentence. You really do have to pay close attention to the words on the page to take in the whole book — and maybe that was the reasoning behind it.

Style aside, I actually did enjoy reading this book. It’s quite a concise book but it doesn’t feel simple. Though this man planted a bomb, he’s described in a bit of an unassuming way… as someone who did what they did in an attempt to fight against colonial powers without harming anyone in the process.

I’d say give this one a try because it’s not going to take you much time to get through, but it is a very well done book — even if the formatting isn’t quite my taste.