We were surprised here in Olympia with a thick, bright coat of snow. It started snowing at 7:00 this morning, and snowed all day. Our backyard with its tall evergreen trees looked like a cheesy old fashioned winter postcard, the kind that makes the snow look so white it has a slight neon blue hue to it. The sight of the snow after the blandness of grey rain for weeks, apart form the occasional sun break, made me feel energized and optimistic, in spite of all the dreadful news of the last days. The madness of the world seemed far away in this winter wonderland I was admiring. I had been missing the bright, wonderful photo series of the Berber nature photographer Djamil Diboune of Aokas, Algeria, when I came across an announcement of a conference from a group that posts events on Facebook, Le Portail des Hommes Libres, about an Algerian writer who immediately sounded very intriguing to me, Amin Zaoui, who would discuss his latest novel of 2017, " L'Enfant de l'oeuf ". I decided to look up his name, and there he was on Wikipedia, Amin Zaoui, born on November 25th, 1956, in Bab el Assa, in Tlemcen province in Algeria. He studied at the University of Oran, received a doctorate in comparative literature, and moved to France during the Algerian civil war ( December 26th, 1991 - February 8th, 2002 ), but returned home in 1999. He teaches comparative literature at the Central Algerian University, and has served as the Director General of the National Library of Algeria. He has been writing novels in both French and Arabic for the last 30 years and his books have been translated into a dozen languages. I felt a surge of interest, and found a great interview on YouTube, " Amin Zaoui : un ecrivain algerien en resistance ", done by Dominic Roederer of the French Radio 1ere outre - mer. The interview was riveting, and dealt with the complexity of Algerian culture intellectually, with the often conflicting concerns of Berber, Arab and French influences, both inside Algeria and also in France with its diaspora of millions of Algerians since the Independence War, with its now third generation of Algerian - French young people who have to deal with the confusion about and alienation from their cultural roots and identity. The interviewer mentioned Kateb Yacine, a giant in Algerian and world literature, whose soul scorching and deeply layered and complex novel " Nedjma ", with its title the Arabic word for star, a reference to the name of the elusive heroine of the novel, reminds me of William Faulkner's " The Sound and the Fury". William Faulkner was a favorite American author of Kateb Yacine in part because Faulkner's black characters, as in " Light in August " are fully developed and Kateb Yacine had made the poignant observation to bring out their contrast with the lack of depth in the development of the Algerian characters in Albert Camus' novels, as evidenced in " L'Etranger", a touchy subject since Albert Camus wrote from the perspective of a Pied Noir and Kateb Yacine did as a result not consider Camus truly Algerian. The interview with the very affable and extroverted Amin Zaoui made me feel so alive with intellectual passion, a feeling I felt when I discovered the earth shattering novels of Toni Morrison 25 years ago, and that I finally felt again when I discovered Kateb Yacine, who also came across tremendously fascinating, open and accessible emotionally, in interviews I had found on YouTube. I could not wait to read Toni Morrison's books all those years ago, her novels " Beloved " and " Song of Solomon" especially blew me away. Kateb Yacine's " Nedjma " had the same impact, and I am so looking forward to read the novels of Amin Zaoui. There is so much division, suspicion, resentment and prejudice in the world right now, there is certainly no shortage of it here in the US, I notice almost daily its poison, to my chagrin and frustration. Today the ray of hope in my day, intellectually speaking, was the interview, so nuanced and well crafted, on Amin Zaoui. Such wonderful things happen in our hearts and souls when we reach out to learn, to understand, to appreciate. " L'Enfant de l'oeuf " sounds wonderfully complex and revealing all in one. I ordered the book today, together with several other of Amin Zaoui's novels, specifically ones the author wrote in French, " La Soumission" ( 1998), and " Haras de Femmes " ( 2001 ), and " Festin de Mensonges " ( 2007), since it is always best to read the work in the language the writer wrote the book in if you can do so. I remember reading the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez' masterpiece " Cien Anos de Soledad ", in Flemish when I was 26, then in Spanish in graduate school, and in English about ten years after that. The original Spanish version was the most satisfying, because it is the language of the setting and history of the story, and the emotional and linguistic subltleties able to be conveyed to the reader in the intended language, matter. I started reading Kateb Yacine's " Nedjma " in English last year, and could not stomach it in translation, as I knew the original was written in French. I read " Nedjma " in French, and am reading it again, grateful I can appreciate its depth and complexity in the language Kateb Yacine wrote it in, a language I fortunately know well. Algeria is a world that I have discovered culturally and intellectually in the last year, and I am thrilled at the constant and abundant richness I find each and every time, and will continue to discover, whether it be: the country's fascinating, dramatic, enigmatic history; the wealth of its bio- diverse and gorgeous nature, that I discovered through the work of Berber nature photographer Djamil Diboune; its comic genius Fellag; its heroic martyrs such as the legendary Berber singer Matoub Lounes, and the musicians that triggered my further curiosity for the country such as Idir, Slimane Azem, and the young Bilal Mohri; the passion of its world class writers Albert Camus and Kateb Yacine, who should also have received the Nobel Prize for literature like Albert Camus did; and now Amin Zaoui, whose mind sounds like it overflows with brilliance. I think of the author of " La Republique de l'abime ", Algerian writer of the Aokas region, Louenas Hassani, who lives in Canada since 2006. This writer is yet another recent discovery that sounds completely fascinating, as I was shared an article by KabyleUniversel.com, speaking of Louenas Hassani's presentation of his first novel " La Creuse des Vents ", in 2016, at the Cultural Center of Aokas, 25 km east of the city of Bejaia. I also found a very good interview of a conference on his latest novel " La republique de l'abime ", done by wizrane production, in 7 installments of about 8 minutes each, on YouTube, which added to the list of new books I order this week. The Cultural Center of Bejaia seems cutting edge when it comes to its enthusiasm and passion to share the intellectual and artistic gifts of Algerian writers and artists, both local and international. I feel like I have been handed a treasure trove of Algeria's multi- layered cultural and intellectual, and historical and linguistic profound and complex perspectives that are timely gifts to a world that is deeply divided along cultural, intellectual lines and in need of genuine efforts to break down preconceived notions about North Africa's history, culture, people, intellect, heart and soul.
The biographical information on the author Amin Zaoui courtesy of Wikipedia and the quoted interview on YouTube. The information on Kateb Yacine on his appreciation of the differences between William Faulkner and Albert Camus, courtesy of Wikipedia and the YouTube video " Albert Camus vs. William Faulkner " by Kateb Yacine.
I am grateful to the group Le Portail des Hommes Libres in Algeria, that introduced me to the chance to get to know the writings of Amin Zaoui and Louenas Hassani.
I am working on a translation into French of this article for my friends in Bejaia, Algeria, since my emotional response to these two new writers I discovered this week made me decide to share the article in English also. Hope blossoms eternally.
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