Mohammed Dib

Mohammed Dib (July 21st 1920 - May 2nd 2003) is a writer Algérie N of French language, author of Romance, Nouvelle S, parts of Théâtre, Conte S for children, and of Poésie.

Biography

Mohammed Dib is born on July 21st, 1920 with Tlemcen in a partly ruined middle-class family. It begins its studies with Tlemcen, without attending the Koranic school, and continues them with Oujda with the Morocco. After the death of his father in 1931, it starts around 1934 to write poems but also to paint. Its meeting with a French teacher, Roger Bellissant (who will become his father-in-law) consolidates it in the way of the writing. From 1938 to 1940 Mohammed Dib becomes teacher, teaching in Zoudj Bghel, close to the Moroccan border. Accountant with Oujda, the following year, with the service of the Subsistence of the Army, it is in 1942 necessary at the Civil service of the Genius then, in 1943 and 1944 interpret Franco-English near the allied armies with Algiers.

Of return to Tlemcen in 1945 Mohammed Dib is until 1947 draftsman of models of carpets, produced and sold under her control. It publishes in 1946 a first poem in the review “the Letters”, published in Geneva, under the name of Diabi. Guest in 1948 with the meetings of Sidi Madani, close to Blida, organized by the Popular education and Youth movements, it become acquainted there with Albert Camus, Jean Cayrol, Louis Guilloux, Jean Sénac, Brice Parain. He is then agricultural trade unionist and accomplishes a first voyage in France. From 1950 to 1952 Mohammed Dib works, at the same time as Kateb Yacine, with the newspaper republican progressist “Algiers”. It publishes there committed reports, texts and chronicles on the theater in spoken Arabic. He also writes in “Freedom”, newspaper of the Algerian Communist party. In 1951 it Marie with Colette Bellissant, of which he will have four children. Mohammed Dib reads at that time traditional French, the American writers, the Soviet and Italian novelists.

After having left in 1952 “Algiers republican”, Mohammed Dib remains again in France whereas with the Editions of the Threshold the Large House appears, first shutter of its trilogy Algérie , inspired by its birthplace, which describes the atmosphere of rural Algeria. In a “writing of report”, “realistic”, it testifies such a “public writer there”, starting from authentic facts, of the misery of the cities and the campaigns, the strikes of the farm laborers, the incipient nationalist claims. The colonial press critic the novel, as of the members of the Algerian Communist party who would have wished there to meet a “positive hero”, Aragon defends it. The two other shutters of the trilogy, the Fire and the Weaving loom , appear in 1954, the year even release of the war of liberation, and 1957. During this period Mohammed Dib, until 1959, is employed in the correspondence and the business accounting.

While it more explicitly approaches the war of independence in a African Summer , Mohammed Dib is expelled of Algeria by the colonial police force because of her militant activities. Andre Malraux, Albert Camus, Jean Cayrol intervenes so that it can settle in France. It is established then with Mougins, in the the Alpes-Maritimes, in his parents-in-law, accomplishing voyages in the Eastern European countries. In 1962 Which remembers the sea proclamation a junction of its writing towards the onirism, the fantastic one and the allegorical one.

In 1964 Mohammed Dib settles in the Paris region, with Meudon, then in 1967 with That-Saint-Cloud, close to Versailles. In Course on wild bank and the Dance of the king published in 1964 and 1968, it continues a more introspective search around the topics of the human condition, femininity and death. In 1970 Mohammed Dib wishes to engage in a new trilogy “on Algeria of today”, whose God in Cruelty and the Master of hunting (1973) constitute the first two shutters.

Mohammed Dib teaches in 1974 (or 1976-1977) at the University of California to Los Angeles, which will inspire to him its novel in worms “L.A. Trip” (2003). As from 1975 it goes several times in Finland where it collaborates, with Guillevic, with translations of Finnish writers. These stays inspire to him its “Scandinavian trilogy”, published as from 1989: Snows of marble , the Sleep of Eve and Infante Moor . Mohammed Dib takes part in a literary jury, in 1976, in the Oklahoma. Parallel to its work of novelist, his collections of poems, Omneros in 1975, Fire beautiful fire in 1979, are celebrations of the love and erotism. Its play Thousand hurrahs for a pig mould , presented to Avignon in 1977 and published in 1980, puts in scene the characters of the Dance of the king . From 1982 to 1984 (or 1983 to 1986) Mohammed Dib is “professor associated” with the international Center with French-speaking Studies with the Sorbonne. In its last books, Simorgh , then Laëzza , finished a few days before its death, it returns, in the shape of a literary puzzle, on its memories of youth. He dies on May 2nd, 2003 at the 82 years age, close to Paris.

Mohammed Dib received many Prices, in particular the Prix Fénéon in 1952, the price of the Union of the Algerian Writers in 1966, the price of the Academy of poetry in 1971, the price of the Association of the Writers of French language in 1978, the Grand Prix of the Francophonie of the French Academy in 1994, allotted for the first time to a Maghrebian writer. It obtained in 1998 the Prix Mallarmé for its collection of poems the child-jazz . In 2003 of many rumors made state of the possibility of attribution with Mohammed Dib of the Nobel Prize of littérature' .

Judgments

“This man of a country which has nothing to do with the trees of my window speaks with the words about Villon and Péguy”.

Louis Aragon

“It is the writer of the precision in the terms, reserve and the reflection. The air which it makes hear on its harpsichord is an interior music which speaks in the middle. Writing in French, without complex and assuming his double culture, the author does not deliver himself purely and simply to the reader. Its literary creation often requires several readings to penetrate until the direction.”

Jean Déjeux, in Homage to Mohammed Dib , “Kalim”, n° 6, University Publications Office, Algiers, 1985.

“The literary work of Mohammed Dib, started at the end of the years ten nine hundred and forty is most important today of the Algerian production in French language. It is also that which expresses a constant renewal of the forms and topics at the same time as a great continuity and an undeniable unit. ” Naget Khadda, Mohammed Dib, this inopportune voice recluse , Édisud, 2003.

Principal works

the Large House , novel, the Threshold, 1952 and Points Threshold. Price Fénéon , 1953.
the Fire , novel, the Threshold, 1954 and Points Threshold.
With the coffee , news, Gallimard, 1955; Sindbad, 1984.
the Weaving loom , novel, the Threshold, 1957 and Points Threshold.
Baba Fekrane , tales for children, the Farandole, 1959.
Shade guardian , poems, Gallimard, 1960; Sindbad, 1981; The Difference, 2003.
Which remembers the sea , novel, the Threshold, 1962 and Points Threshold.
Dance of the king , novel, the Threshold, 1968.
God in cruelty , novel, the Threshold, 1970.
Forms , poems, the Threshold, 1970.
the Master of hunting , novel, the Threshold, 1973 and Points Threshold.
the Cat which is sulky , tales for children, the Farandole, 1974 and Albin Michel, 2004.
Omneros , poems, the Threshold, 1975.
Habel , novel, the Threshold, 1977.
Fire beautiful fire , poems, the Threshold, 1979.
Terraces of Orsol , novel, Sindbad, 1985; The Difference, 2003.
the Sleep of Eve , novel, Sindbad, 1989; The Difference, 2003.
Snows of marble , novel, Sindbad, 1990.
the Desert without turning , novel, Sindbad, 1992, the Difference 2006.
Infante Moor , novel, Albin Michel, 1994.
Tlemcen or places of the writing , texts and photographs, the black Review, 1994.
the wild Night , novel, Albin Michel, 1995.
If Devil wants , novel, Albin Michel, 1998.
the Tree with dires , news, test, Albin Michel, 1998.
the Child jazz , poems, the Difference, 1998.
the insular Heart , poems, the Difference, 2000.
Like a noise of bees , Albin Michel, 2001.
L.A. Trip , novel, the Difference, 2003.
Simorgh , news, test, Albin Michel, 2003.
Laëzza , news, test, Albin Michel, 2006.

Selective bibliography

Jean Déjeux, Mohammed Dib, Algerian writer , Naaman, Sherbrook, 1977.
Jean Déjeux, methodical and critical Bibliography of the Algerian literature of French language 1945-1977 , SNED, Algiers, 1979.
Nourredine Belhadj-Kacem, the topic of the dispossession in the “trilogy” , ENAL, Algiers, 1983.
Naget Khadda, the novel of Mohammed Dib, Proposals for the analysis of two novels , University Publications Office, Algiers, 1983.
Jean Déjeux, Dictionary of the Maghrebian authors of French language , Paris, Karthala Editions, 1984 .
Homage to Mohammed Dib , the occasion of the sixty-fifth birthday of the birth of the author, texts of Jacqueline Arnaud, Zineb Ali Benali, Charles Bonn, Mériem Cadi, Beïda Chikhi, François Desplanques, Mireille Djaïder, Naget Khadda, Fewzia Sari, Paul Siblot, Kamel Yanat, Mourad Yelles Chaouche, bio-bibliography of Jean Déjeux, “Kalim”, n° 6, University Publications Office, Algiers, 1985.
Anthology of the Algerian literature (1950-1987) , introduction, choice, notes and comments of Charles Bonn, the Book of Pocket, Paris, 1990
Bachir Adjil, Space and writing in Mohammed Dib: the Scandinavian trilogy , foreword of Denise Brahimi, Harmattan /Awal, Paris, 1995.
Mohammed Dib, the large house of the writing; Mohammed Khadda, the adventure of the sign , texts on Mohammed Dib de Naget Khadda, Christiane Chaulet-Achour, Guy Dugas, Tahar Bekri, Soumya Ammar-Khodja, Mohammed Bahi, Malika Hadj-Naceur, Yamilé Harraoui-Ghebalou, Salim Jay, Mohamed Zaoui, Rachida Saïgh-Bousta, in “Maghrebian Horizons”, University of Toulouse Mirail, Toulouse, 1999.
Jean-Louis Joubert, Mohammed Dib , in Dictionary of poetry of Baudelaire at our days, under the direction of Michel Jarrety, Paris, University Presses of France, 2001.
Mohammed Dib , texts of Naget Khadda, Mohammed Dib, Guy Dugas, Gil Jouanard, Paul Siblot, Pebble Fox, Denise Brahimi, François Desplanques, Djamel Amrani and Fritz Peter Kirsch, in Europe , n° special Algeria , Paris, 2003.
Naget Khadda, Mohammed Dib: this inopportune voice recluse , Édisud, Aix-en-Provence, 2003.

Internal bond

Algerian Literature

External bond

Site LIMAG: the page on Mohammed Dib

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