Thursday 16 March 2017

Safia Ketou and "The Mauve Planet"



Safia Ketou (Zohra Rabhi) is the first writer of sci-fi stories in Algerian literature. She was born in 1944 and died in 1989.

Safia Ketou wrote short stories, and children story books. She also published a collection of poetry, Citar Friends (Amie Cithare), and a play called Asma.

Her sci-fi stories were published in a collection called 'The Mauve Planet' published in Canada in 1983.

Safia Ketou's style is simple and nude. Her stories start simply enough, and the reader follows the tone of a tale that echoes childhood memories, until suddenly the story has edged towards something bordering on horror.

Because The Mauve Planet is impossible to find in Algeria and is unknown abroad, I thought I'd bend the rules and redirect readers to her collection in full in PDF here, and translate one of here stories in English here for those who would like to have a more specific idea of Ketou's style.


She deserves to be remembered, these stories deserve to be known, in Algeria and abroad.



La première femme auteure de science-fiction algérienne: Safia Ketou. Zohra Rabhi alias Safia Ketou est née le 15 novembre 1944 à Aïn-Séfra et décèdera jeune, le 29 janvier 1989.

Elle a publié un recueil de poèmes "Amie cithare" (1979), une pièce de théatre “Asma”, ainsi qu'une série d'histoire pour enfants “Rose Des Sables" (1983).

C’est dans sa collection de nouvelles "La planète mauve" que Safia Ketou va produire les premiers écrits de science-fiction de la littérature algérienne.

Parce qu'il est impossible de trouver ce recueil en version papier, voici un lien vers "La planète mauve" en entier en PDF https://drive.google.com/…/0Bwl_rSrOXFZsZDVoSlE3QnlGcGM/view


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