As lockdown continues, Guardian Opinion is reviving its A book that changed me series, an opportunity for writers to select the very best reading to help get us through these uncertain times, with a new instalment every Monday. The list of questions an author is asked inevitably includes which books most influenced them. Though they may start by trying to give an honest answer, writers ultimately treat it as a joke or lapse into endless speculation. We also come to realise that the answers we provide are far from objective or consistent, depending largely on when the question arises, on our age and sincerity. And although we tend to cite great names and classics, we end up secretly acknowledging that what influences a writer may well be a thriller, a phrase in a fashion catalogue, an extract from an anthology, a school textbook, something we never actually read, only dreamed of, or an author’s biography rather than one of their works. Influence moves (and speaks) in mysterious ways. But is this always the case? Yes and no. When I was growing up in a village in Algeria in the 1970s, books were hard to find, bookshops and libraries nonexistent. I read what came to hand, not what I fancied. With reading matter scarce I got into the habit – which I still have – of reading things several times. So I naturally recall a book, much reread, on which I first stumbled by chance (in keeping with my belief that some force guides the appearance of books in our lives) and which I later covered carefully in fine paper. For me, The Fruits of the Earth (Les Nourritures Terrestres) by André Gide has become in some sense sacred. Few people now read this hymn to the human body, first published in 1897. It asserted the legitimacy of desire over morals and the right to enjoy our body over religion, lauding the senses rather than ideals. The revolution it heralded is outdated now. Les Nourritures Terrestres was written before the era of liberated sensuality or the view that orgasm is a human right. Today it would seem passé, if only on account of its flamboyant style. But in the 1970s Algeria had only just gained its independence and seemed puritanical, governed by religious conservatism and austere socialism. So to me the book was a true revelation, spurring my revolt against any attempt by faith or politics to control my body. When I first read, and then reread, the book, I was over 16 and struggling to break free of a guilt-ridden religious ethos. Living in an isolated village with an illiterate family, my revolt often lacked suitable instruments or mentors. Revolt was possible in big towns, for the children of the elite or with the benefit of education, acquaintances or travel. In a village it was almost impossible. So when I first opened Gide’s book I was struck by two things: his incantatory, almost hypnotic style; and, above all, that this was a sincere cry from the heart. Here at last was the scripture I sought! I found out I could defend my body and my sexual inclinations without guilt. However simplistic such a claim might sound now, I started feeling things around me differently. It was as if their intensity had been restored. The world was no longer outclassed by some paradise to come; it could be a paradise, there and then. “It is not enough to read that the sand on the beach is soft,” Gide wrote. “I want my bare feet to feel it. I have no use for any knowledge that is not preceded by a sensation.” It was my first initiation into freedom. Nowadays I reference key thinkers, ideological adversity or the leaders of uprisings, but I have to admit that it was this book that first suggested to me that it was possible to openly lead a free life, overturning the long established primacy of the invisible over the flesh. My body, I realised, was my only fortune, the sole palpable truth that I could share with another. Desire was thus the only means of achieving eternity. To this day all I can see in the main religious creeds is jealousy between forlorn gods, unable to assume human form and bite into an apple. With time we also come to understand that though a candle sheds light on the pages we turn, so too does an era. Which is why some books may seem, in a given context, to hold the solution to an enigma, yet later are no more use than an old key at the bottom of a drawer. Let me explain by way of another author. When I tell people in Europe that science fiction also played a role in liberating me from religion, they are often surprised. But the first books I read by Arthur C Clarke triggered a veritable big bang in me. How could this be? I grew up in a country where the earth was full of the tombs of the victims of our war of independence. The sky above was the preserve of the Almighty. Science fiction stripped the heavens of their divinity – it replaced religion with mystery and infinite space; neurotic prophecies with the adventures of astronauts. It restored my sense of dignity, reasserted my right to mystery and fuelled my appetite for discovery. In the west, science fiction is a genre. Elsewhere it may herald a Copernican revolution in the mind of a child. In this way, Gide’s The Fruits of the Earth still resonates in me. On account of the memory of my early steps towards freedom. As for the copy of the book, I still have it. • Kamel Daoud is a journalist and the author of The Meursault Investigation • Translated by Harry Forster