Focus on Mustapha Benfodil: Bus 54

In residence from September 15 to October 19, 2025, Algerian writer Mustapha Benfodil will present his project Bus 54, a collection of urban short stories inspired by everyday Algerian life, at a café lecture on Saturday, September 27. 
Mustapha Benfodil's stories oscillate between realism and fantasy, exploring in turn the relationship of a father and his six-year-old daughter, the audacity of a young filmmaker faced with a taboo subject, the loneliness of a boy shy to the point of invisibility, or the endless waiting of a wandering soul in search of a place in the Bab El Oued cemetery.

Romanist, poet, playwright and journalist born in 1968 in Algiers, Mustapha Benfodil has published a dozen books, including several novels published by Barzakh: Zarta/Le déserteur (2000), Les Bavardages du Seul (2003), Archéologie du chaos [amoureux] (2007), Body Writing/Vie et mort de Karim Fatimi, écrivain (2018, reissued in 2019 by Macula under the title Alger, journal intense) and Terminus Babel (2023). His plays, including Clandestinopolis (2006) and Les Borgnes (2010), have notably premiered in France.

About Ahmed El Falah

Born in Rabat in 1993, Ahmed El Falah is an actor, author and director. Trained at the Cours Florent, he founded Compagnie Rassif in Morocco in 2021. His first published text, Le Journal d'un fou, features a literary dialogue with the Persian poet Rumi. With his project presented at La Cité, the author continues to question violence and resilience through strong, hard-hitting writing.

As part of his residency, from Monday September 15 to Sunday October 19, 2025, he will also take part in the café-lecture organized on September 27.

Café-lecture: a time to meet the authors

On Saturday September 27, 2025 at 11am, the Cité internationale de la langue française is offering a café-lecture with the residents. This privileged moment will provide an opportunity to discover extracts from their texts and to dialogue with them over coffee.

During this meeting, Mustapha Benfodil will read a passage from Bus 54, while Ahmed El Falah (Morocco) will present his gripping tale, in which a child tries to survive in a fictional country that has legalized violence against minors.

All information on the café-lecture