I heard the 86-year-old French journalist Henri Alleg speak last night. His talk was about the circumstances under which he wrote The Question. Here’s a brief synopsis of the book:

At the time of his arrest by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers in June of 1957, Henri Alleg was a French journalist who supported Algerian independence. He was interrogated for one month. During this imprisonment, Alleg was questioned under torture, with unbelievable brutality and sadism. The Question is Alleg’s profoundly moving account of that month and of his triumph over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre’s preface remains a relevant commentary on the moral and political effects of torture on both the victim and perpetrator.

Later, at dinner, speaking about Algeria, but it could as well have been Iraq, Monsieur Alleg said that people often ask him what can be done to avoid torture. His reply is that “there can be no clean war in this situation.” You cannot simply ban torture; you have to banish the war itself. With my friend Paul Fenouillet translating for me, I asked Alleg if he had a question for his torturers. “I don’t have much to say about that situation,” he replied in English. “I had seen these people after the sentence that gave me ten years imprisonment. They were like little school-boys.”

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