Kateb Yacine

Kateb Yacine was born in Constantine in August 1929, into a family of scholars; his father sent him to the French lycée rather than to the Koranic school. As a schoolboy, he took part in the Sétif demonstrations of 8 May 1945: arrested and imprisoned, he came out expelled from the lycée, and his mother, believing him dead, lost her reason. A docker, then a journalist at Alger républicain, he afterwards lived between France and Algeria, devoted himself to theatre in colloquial Arabic and in Berber, performed in factories and villages, and received the Grand Prix national des lettres in 1987. He died in Grenoble on 28 October 1989 and lies buried in Algiers.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelNedjmaKateb Yacine · 1956Literature