Assia Djebar
A novelist, poet, and film director.
Djebar (nee Fatima-Zohra Imalhayene) was born in 1936 in a small coastal town west of Algiers. In 1955, she became the first Algerian woman to be admitted to the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure de Sevres. In 1956, she turned to fiction writing in support of the Algerian student strike, adopting the pen-name Assia Djebar, which she has kept ever since. She received her degree in History from the Sorbonne at the age of 26.
Djebar published her first novel, La Soif (The Mischief) at the age of 21, and has since authored over fifteen novels and volumes of poetry, all of which have met with immense popular and critical success. An historian by training, her novels chronicle the history of the Maghreb during the twentieth-century, focusing on depolarization and its aftermath, with particular emphasis on women.
In 1978, she directed La nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua, which won the Grand Prix de la Critique Internationale at the Venice Film Festival. In 1982, she directed La zerda et les chants de l'oubli, a documentary covering the years 1912-1942 in North Africa.
Djebar has received numerous international awards, including, in 1996, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (second only to the Nobel).
In 1997, she assumed the position of Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University.