Assia Djebar

Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (Arabic: فاطمة الزهراء إيمالاين‎; 30 June 1936 – 6 February 2015), known by her pen name Assia Djebar (Arabic: آسيا جبار), was an Algerian novelist, translator and filmmaker. Most of her works deal with obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. She is "frequently associated with women's writing movements, her novels are clearly focused on the creation of a genealogy of Algerian women, and her political stance is virulently anti-patriarchal as much as it is anti-colonial." Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's pre-eminent and most influential writers. She was elected to the Académie française on 16 June 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition. For the entire body of her work she was awarded the 1996 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. She was often named as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Early life

Fatima-Zehra Imalayen or Djebbar was born on 30 June 1936 in Cherchell, Algeria, to Tahar Imalhayène and Bahia Sahraoui, a family of Chenouas Berber origin. She was raised in Cherchell, a small seaport village near Algiers in the Province of Aïn Defla. Djebar's father taught French at Mouzaïaville, a primary school she attended. Later, Djebar attended a Quranic private boarding school in Blida, where she was one of only two girls. She studied at Collège de Blida, a high school in Algiers, where she was the only Muslim in her class. She attended the École normale supérieure de jeunes filles in 1955, becoming the first Algerian and Muslim woman to be educated at France's most elite schools. Her studies were interrupted by the Algerian War, but she later continued her education in Tunis.