Machaho Tellem Chaho

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 1...

Le grand zoiseau by Baya 1985 The painter and sculptor Baya Mehieddine, born Fatima Haddad on 12 December 1931 (Bordj el Kiffan), is best remembered as a self-taught artist, and a surrealist, who marked her time (and ours still) with her bold depictions of animals and women in gouache. But little do we know her as a writer (see below). Baya's first exhibition was held when she was very young, sixteen years of age, in November 1947 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris. To publicise and celebrate the event, a leaflet in eight-sheets was produced, and it so happened that I found a hard copy (!). It is available here as a PDF . The leaflet is a true gem: it contains six lithographies by Baya, and rarer still, there is a short story by her called 'Le Grand Zoiseau' (difficult to translate, it means 'the big bird' but it is written phonetically in the way children pronounce 'bird' in French and mistake the singular for the plural). The title is known but a...

( portrait of the artist made by M'hammed Issiakhem in Bouchene's 1987 edition of the poems ) Ismael Ait Djafer is an Algerian poet and caricaturist known for two gut-wrenching long compositions ' Complainte des mendiants arabes de la Casbah et de la petite Yasmina tuée par son père ' (published in 1950) and ' Cri ' (possibly composed in 1964, and published in 1987, and 1998). 'Cri' is pratically impossible to find nowadays, so to honour the poet's memory, and to try to keep his work in circulation his poem 'Cri', in the edition published by Novelte Massalia in 1998, is made available here as a pdf ( DOWNLOAD ). The whole book (with both poems) is downloadable here . The edition features a profile of the poet by Nadia Idjouadienne, a preface by Yacine Kateb, and two drawings by Ait Djafer.    Ismael Ait Djafer was born on 1 March 1929 in the Casbah, Algiers, where he was raised. A timid, gent...

Zoulikha Saoudi 20 December 1943 - 22 November 1972 "I was born in 1944, and followed my first years of study at the mosque of Sidi Lazhar's koranic school, in the city of Khenchela … At 9 years of age, I transferred to primary school in Khenchela. My first teacher was Belkacem Djebaili, and the man of letters Mahboub Boutaleb - it is he who encouraged me to read and guided me toward literature. At the end of my fourth year of study, I obtained my CEP certificate. I was 13 years-old then, and from that time I stayed confined at home. I could no longer go out, my only reason to live became reading and my thirst for knowledge… In 1957, I collected a few prose poems in a little notebook, a collection I called 'Revelations of Pain'. Three years later, in 1960, I scribbled an additional seven short-stories in a second notebook, the themes of which were society and women's struggles within it. I called it 'Sketches of awareness' ." ( extract of a ...

' La Soif ' ( The thirst ) is Assia Djebar's first novel. It was published in 1957 by Julliard editions in Paris, France. By all accounts, it was a difficult novel to own up to for Djebar immediately after its publication. ' La Soif ' not only appeared during Algeria's war of independence, while the fighting against France was raging in Algeria, but it was set very far away from war or any matters relating to colonisation. Narrated by a young priviledged Algerian woman during her summer holiday, La Soif is the story of a complex foursome, two couples, who spend the summer together by the sea. As tensions rapidly build between the two women and men, the foursome disolves into a threesome. This mischievous slip will lead to tragic events that will affect the life of each character, for ever. ' La Soif ' is an intimate and sensual novel. It is built looking inward, by a woman who looks at her body, and tries to understand its needs, her tenden...