Machaho Tellem Chaho

" Ombre Absurde in Days colour of the sun ( Jours coleur de soleil ) OMBRE ABSURDE acharnée à ma masturbation ma mort mon suicide détramé. Débris de moi Débris de rien Debout sur mon cadavre JE VOUS SALUE fascinantes morgues de mon delirium QU'ON M'EMPILE après tout qu'on change les DRAPS. QU'IL NE DEMEURE en moi que la trace de ton CORPS." *** Algerian poet Djamal Amrani was born in 1935, in Sour-El-Ghozlane , and passed away in 2005.  He wrote in French and published 16 poetry collections, one novel and one theatre play.  He participated in the struggle against France during the war of independence, and in the Battle of Algiers in 1957 - he was caught and tortured for a month. He was then released and sent in exile in Paris.  When independence was won, the Algerian government mandated him to be Algeria's ambassador in Cuba.  His first book The Witness was published in 1960.  In 2004, he was awarded ...

  Algerian poet Zeinab Laouedj was born in 1954, in Maghnia (Tlemcen).  She writes in Arabic and is translated in French (all be it seldom). I have not found her translated in English. The latest French translation of her work I've found is in this collection of texts by Algerian writers and poets called Paroles d'Algériens : Ecrire pour résister dans l'Algerie du XXè Siècle (2003). In the above collection, you can find her poem 'Le Palmier' [The Palm Tree] dedicated to Abdelkader Alloua, the Algerian playwright assassinated on 10 March 1994, and to the poet Youcef Sebti assassinated on 27 December 1993: "Mon pays My country Je suis un Lion I am a Lion Et je vous ferai trembler And I will make you tremble Jusque dans vos forêts Up til your forests Moi le Fou Me, the Crazed Fou par amour de sa patrie Mad for the love of his land Où nul fou Where ...

Once again the ‘One is never better served than by oneself’ axiom is proving entirely false as far as my experience is concerned. One is much better served by others, or at the very least much better helped - not meaning to sound royal. Thanks to Twitter this time round. I set out about six months ago to exclusively read literature written by Algerian writers (I use the term literature loosely). I wanted to see if there was a distinctive feature or thread in ‘Algerian novels’, a particular Algerian experience encrypted in the numerous works of those born and raised on that land. Or is literature in essence ‘universal’, drawn from a common source of knowledge and experience - you know the one high up there, limitless, mighty, impalpable and damn repetitive - similar in expression and theme for every place and every people. It turns out that this exclusive-reading is proving rather painful - I don’t recommend it - and I have taken a break several times to clear my h...