Today marks the centenary of Mohammed Dib who was born on 21 July 1920 in Tlemcen. Dib is one of the most successful and recognisable voices of Algerian literature, and one of its most prolific.
Dib's first novels and short stories changed the fiction spectrum with their depiction of the everyday life of Algerians and the oppressive conditions of French colonisation - daring themes at the time. Dib's first novel, La Grande Maison (The Great House) published in 1952 by Le Seuil editions (France) was received with acclaim by readers and the literary community for the beauty of Dib's writing as much as for the novel's theme. Conversely and unsurprisingly, it was received with much anguish by the French authorities given the content. This first novel was to be part of a trilogy, the second volume of which, L'Incendie (The Fire), appeared in 1954 as the war of independence was declared. The third and final volume Le Métier à tisser (The Loom) was released in 1957.
In retaliation against the themes of Dib's fiction, and his success, the French authorities decided to expel Dib out of Algeria in 1959, sending him into exile. Much support was raised for him to be able to settle in France - he was married to a French woman and could legally stay there also - and after the successful lobbying of a number of high profiles individuals including other writers, Dib settled in France and remained there until his death in 2003.
After Algeria won its independence, the first two volumes of the trilogy were made into a TV series in Algeria by the ENTV, aired in 1972 (available on YouTube).
Dib would go on to write many short stories and novels, including another trilogy, lesser known and referred as his 'Nordic trilogy', inspired by a stay in Norway and Sweden.
The three books, Les Terrasses d’Orsol (Orsol's terrasses), Le Sommeil d’Ève (Eve's slumber) et Neiges de marbre (Snows of marble) are narrated by a man sent against his wishes by his employer to a city in Scandinavia (the country is not identified). On the brink of divorce and completely cut off from Algeria and his city 'Orsol', the narrator begins to no longer being able to recognise himself and sinks into a semi dream state, half wanting to forget his identity altogether, and half looking for himself again to muster the will to act. It is then that strange visions overtake him.
Much of Dib's work is no longer in circulation, and of his plays only two are published : Mille houras pour une gueuse, created for the Avignon Festival in 1977 and published in 1980 by Seuil editions. A second known as 'Le Voeu de la septième lune' (The wish of the seventh moon) was not published until Kalima editions edited it in 2019 as a pocket book in their Djib collection called "Petits inédits maghrébins".
The play, set in China in feudal times, follows an enamoured royal couple completely cut off from the everyday of their subjects and who, facing a coup, must decide whether to run and survive, or submit to fate.
The excerpt of a third play by Dib, aired on the radio only, and still unpublished, is featured in the summer edition of the montly literary magazine 'Europe', a volume dedicated to Dib's work (and to Senac's).
Dib was a prolific writer of poetry. One of his collections, L.A. Trip, described in the original as 'a novel in verse', was translated to English by Paul Vangelisti (Green Integrer), released in 1985.
Despite his exile to France, Dib remained attached and inspired by his birth city of Tlemcen. In 1946, when Dib was still living in Algeria, a friend had lent him a camera and Dib had wandered around Tlemcen taking photographs. The series now called Tlemcen ou les lieux de l'ecriture (Tlemcem or The Places of Writing) was turned into a photo essay as part of a project intiated by Tlemcen's French cultural center in 1993. It was released in 1994 in France by the Revue Noire editions and was reissued on 2 June 2020 by Barzakh in Algeria to celebrate Dib's centenary. The Algerian edition is prefaced by the novelist Waciny Laaredj.
Out of all of Dib's fiction, it is perhaps his children books that are the least known, most probably because they are all out of print. He published three over the years: Baba Fekrane in 1959 (La Farandole), L'histoire du chat qui boude first as a text only in 1974 (La Farandole) then illustrated (Albin Michel in 2003, and Scandéditions in 1980), and L'hippopotame qui se trouvait vilain [The hippopotamus who thought himself ugly] (Albin Michel, 2001).
L'hippopotame qui se trouvait vilain (The hippopotamus who thought himself ugly) follows the story of a baby hippo who chances upon the house of "people so white they can't be seen". Curious, he enters the house and see himself in a mirror for the first time. The image reflected back is shocking to him: baby hippo finds himself so ugly and can no longer stay in his own skin. His mother, who can't stand seeing him so stricken, takes him to the local magician who shape-shifts him into a number of 'others', until baby hippo finds happiness as himself again.
To celebrate this story very much rooted in the effect of colonialism on the self and to pay homage to Mohammed Dib's centenary, the PDF of L'hippopotame qui se trouvait vilain is made available here.
For further centenary celebrations see:
ArabLit : Mohammed Dib: Celebrating 100 Years.
TV5 Monde : Tlemcen ou les lieux de l’écriture : à la découverte de Mohammed Dib [VIDEO]
FASSL (vol 2) : special edition on Mohammed Dib
مسلسل الحريق [VIDEO]
Dib's books in English :
1985. Who Remembers the Sea by Mohammed Dib, transl from the French by Louis Tremaine (Passeggiata Press)
2001. The Savage Night by Mohammed Dib, transl from the French C. Dickson (University of Nebraska press)
2003. L.A. Trip by Mohammed Dib, transl from the French by Paul Vangelisti (Green Integrer)
2011. At the Café and The Talisman, translated by C. Dickson
2012. Tlemcen or Places of Writing, translated by Guy Bennett
Comments
I'm still looking for a publisher.
my email is adjout@live.com
thank you