Machaho Tellem Chaho

I woke up this morning struck with the, finally lucid, realisation that attempting to learn Derja or Kabyle for a Francophone zmigré over 18 is pointless. In a country where you would be justified to think the last thing needed is another French speaker, it turns out that irrationality, economics, and the neighbourhood's geopolitics will largely forgive you, if not encourage you, to simply come settle, and remain, on the strength of that ability alone: speaking French. When do we need to learn a language, or rather, when does a language become necessary to learn? The earliest evidence of language writing found so far shows it is economics that motivated writing, not the dire need to record love songs, although that came later. Economics is probably the preponderant factor that decides and motivates learning a language, and ultimately keeping up with it. Learning a language for the love of it, like setting poems in clay or stone, comes after. But the economics of ...

Pink and rosy lenses on my glasses The first external place you'll end up knowing well after you land anywhere urban is the street. Streets are the arteries that pump and tie up all activities, whether you walk them or drive through them. I have been walking the streets as a woman, I can't escape my gender, but mostly I walk them as a human being. In the streets, among the vast Algerian skies, the ochres of city houses, the dusty whites of metropoleis , palm trees' flamboyant greens, and the pale khakis of olive orchards, there is quite a crowd. But people aren't walking. Pedestrians appear static. While the act of putting one foot after another is visibly unfolding, no movement to speak of is perceptible. And so, avoiding collision at a very slow rate into a variety of static but not fixed obstacles may have slowed, and toned down, my perception of several events. One such and which has been popping up much in blogs and radio lately is street harass...

Ain Fezza's Grotto - Tlemcen In the net that a language weaves, and in the concepts woven into that net, giving shape to the pattern, you can find antonyms. Antonyms, carried by a word, represent a meaning that faces another and stands opposite to it. Like a spatial location, top/bottom, a physical attribute, tall/short, a time stamp, before/after, an abstract, beginning/end. Each word-vessel is separate from its opposite and is spelt differently. Among the group 'antonyms', there is the peculiar category of auto-antonyms. Peculiar because the same word carries two opposite meanings, both inside a word with the same spelling. There is no graphic difference, no visible identity for each. In English, before both means in front of (I am here before you) and, well... before (have you ever thought about this before?). Auto-antonyms are absolutely fascinating. Fascinating because they point to and illustrate the lexical extent a word can reach. This category ...

Qal lek that during the fasting month of Ramadan, Shaytan, this much greater devil than Insan , gets chained up for the duration. This has for effect that in some unsought way, the human beings we are, are offloaded from his wickedness (that is not to say from all wickedness, only Shaytan's inspired own). Effectively, during the month of Ramadan, Shaytan is neutralised, out of circulation, pulled off the streets. Puff. And who would have thought that the combination of fasting and a lack of inspiration for evil doings could lead to: a very great street party. A great nocturnal fest, not only a feast, is taking place in Algiers nightly (this year and perhaps so for a long time) featuring all manners of concerts, museum tours, exhibitions, theatre plays on a wide array of themes, and open-air cinema. Not to mention sweet-cakes, mint tea and salty peanuts stalls, ice-cream parlours, brochettes vendors and various restaurants opened from dusk to dawn. This is mo...

I went to a debate during the International Festival of Literature and of Young People’s Literature ( FELIV ) in Algiers on the competing voices of official versions of History and factual's versions. I wrote the below for Arab Literature in English Translation and wanted to post it here to record it because this subject is the very reason why I have been looking into Algerian literature, why I think its role is so important, fragile and ultimately crucial. The (literary) writing of history” was the topic of Sunday, June 15′s discussion between French author and Goncourt prize winner Jean Rouaud ( Fields of Glory, 1990 ) and Algerian writer Abdelkader Djamai ( La Dernière nuit de l’Emir, 2012). France Culture producer Catherine Pont-Humbert aptly moderated the talk around the following questions: In the historical novels you’ve written, where was the frontier between what is lived and what is history? Rouaud was clear on this. For him, “every novel, exc...

“We” are interrupted You might have noticed that in the Algerian language, to conjugate a verb in the first person singular (in the present-future), you prefix it with noon : n ften , n ro7 , n 'bghi . This noon is also found in the conjugation of the first person plural verb (in the present-future), with the addition of the plural marker waw : n b'dl o , n tlaqa w , n 7ebb o .    noon is part of what makes "us" and "I".  “We”, in Algerian, is grammatically built on part of the identity of "I". “We” is a continuation of “I” grammatically speaking. "I" s are linked by their plurality, the waw plural marker says as much. "We" is a plurality ( waw ) based on singularities ( noon ).  In Algerian, “we” is a group of individuals ( I ) linked by their singular state ( noon ). "We" is a group tied by their individualities - their differences, not by their similarities. waw is also used elsewhere in gra...

The International Festival of Literature and Young people's Literature ( FELIV ) opened in Algiers on 11 June and will close on 20 June. Publishers, authors and the public are meeting to browse, discuss and debate literature produced around the world, its place and its future.  Many authors were invited and many are to be found having chatting around the esplanade of Riadh El Feth, signing copies for readers, and posing with them for photos. Books presented by publishing houses are in French and Arabic. Debates are held in French. As part of the Festival, photographer Francesco Gattoni put together an exhibition of his photographs of "Authors Around the World". 50 writers' portraits are to be found in three stations of Algiers' metro: Tafourah, Les Jardins d'Essai and Les Fusilés. Next to each portrait, a presentation of the author and a text in French and Arabic speaks of the author, presents excerpts of an author's work or lets the author speak. ...