Based on three novels by the contemporary Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra, the study discusses didactic and aesthetic features of the literary text. While essentially set in the Arab world, Khadra’s fiction links to western encyclopaedia and journalistic discourse. In relating to this part of the reader’s experience, the novels produce an impression of proximity to the peripheral real, and a sense of responsibility. It is suggested that this interdiscursivity be viewed not as a deviation from literature but as inherent to literary discourse itself; the text comments and constitutes simultaneously. Emphasising the hybridity of literary means and didactical drive, the study proposes that Khadra’s work be labelled “didafiction”.