Zoulikha Saoudi - An Anthology

 

Zoulikha Saoudi
20 December 1943 - 22 November 1972

"I was born in 1944, and followed my first years of study at the mosque of Sidi Lazhar's koranic school, in the city of Khenchela … At 9 years of age, I transferred to primary school in Khenchela. My first teacher was Belkacem Djebaili, and the man of letters Mahboub Boutaleb - it is he who encouraged me to read and guided me toward literature. At the end of my fourth year of study, I obtained my CEP certificate. I was 13 years-old then, and from that time I stayed confined at home. I could no longer go out, my only reason to live became reading and my thirst for knowledge… In 1957, I collected a few prose poems in a little notebook, a collection I called 'Revelations of Pain'. Three years later, in 1960, I scribbled an additional seven short-stories in a second notebook, the themes of which were society and women's struggles within it. I called it 'Sketches of awareness'." (extract of a letter by Zoulikha Saoudi sent in 1960 to the poet Sayehi El Kabir, as quoted by Waciny Laaredj).

Zoulikha Saoudi: a pioneer novelist


I was searching through Banipal's archive when I found their special issue on Algerian literature (magazine no. 7 published in 2000), a beautiful volume illustrated by the visual artist Rachid Koraichi (excuse the library sticker).

The section dedicated to Algerian literature is introduced by Waciny Laaredj whose opening piece titled "Breaking the silence on Algerian literature" pays tribute to Zoulikha Saoudi, calling her "the greatest Algerian writer in Arabic". Laaredj deplores that Zoulikha Saoudi has been entirely forgotten from the Algerian literary canon, and that instead of talking about 'the father of the Algerian novel in Arabic', we should all be discussing 'the mother of the Algerian novel'.

I'm ashamed to say that until reading Laaredj's article, I had not heard of this writer, and upon searching for more information I found several more pieces published in the Algerian press, by Waciny Laaredj who describes Saoudi's journey as a writer.

Zoulikha Saoudi was born on 20 December 1943 in Khenchela (Babar), and passed away on 22 November 1972 in Algiers, during a hospitalisation to help a difficult pregnancy. She wrote many short stories, plays, poetry, and a novel (1963). Laaredj says that the style and theme of her novel were pioneering and opened a new era, not only in Algerian fiction, but also for Algerian female novelists. 

Zoulikha Saoudi's work was not published in book format. She read many of her stories on the radio to her audience under the pseudonym 'Amal' (she was also a radio journalist), and much of her work was published in newspapers, and serialised.

In his 2006 article in El Watan newspaper, Laaredj mentions that her first short story was titled 'The Victim' "written in 1960 and aired on the radio with the help of her dear friend, the poet Sayehi El Kabir". She then began to publish in the newspaper El Ahrar, as well as in El Djazaïria and El Fadjr. Her novella 'Arjouna' (We hoped) was published in the first issue of a magazine called 'Amal'. Her first novel, 'Al-Dhawaban' (The dissolution) was published as a series in the newspaper El-Ahrar (no. 24) from 11 February 1963. Laaredj describes it as a biographical novel inspired by the life of her brother who loved theatre (he was murdered soon after independence). The novel recounts the story of a man who goes to Cairo, attracted to the theatre scene there, and it describes his encounter with the city and with his theatre idols, such as Youcef Wahbi.

In that same article, Laaredj mentions that Saoudi's collection called "Ahlam el-rabi3" (Spring Dreams) and her correspondence were gathered by the Algerian poet Zaynab Laouedj (his wife), with the help of Sayehi El Kabir, Mohammed Lazrak, and Saoudi's family. I was told by Zaynab Laouedj in a private communication that she hopes to publish the gathered work in a volume soon (post 2019).

The task of collecting Zoulikha Saoudi's work was also undertaken by the scholar Ahmed Cheribet. The material he collected - short stories, letters, plays, poetry, articles, was published in 2001 in an anthology titled:

الآثار الأدبية الكاملة للأديبة الجزائرية، زليخا السعودي، 1943-1972

This book is very hard to find, and I would not have had access to it had it not been shared with me as a pdf (thank you Kamil). Since it is so rare, I share it here. Download and enjoy!

This post was comes from my other blog: TellemChahoMachaho

Baya Mahieddine - Le Grand Zoiseau (a Kabyle folktale)

 

 

this article was originally published on ArabLit 

Painter and sculptor Baya Mehieddine (1931-1998), born Fatima Haddad on December 12, 1931 in Bordj el Kiffan, is best remembered as a surrealist painter and self-taught artist who marked her time (and ours) with her bold-hued depictions of women and shape-shifting animals. We know little of her as a writer. But Baya in fact wrote at least one short tale, published in the gallery leaflet of her first exhibition in November 1947.

Baya’s first exhibition was held when she was very young, sixteen years of age, at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, a gallery that still exists today. To publicize and celebrate the event, a leaflet in eight sheets was produced, and a few copies remain in circulation. The precious pages showcase eight rare lithographies by Baya, and, rarer still, a short story by her called “Le Grand Zoiseau,” which I translate here as “The Great Great Big Bird.” The wording is difficult to convey in English for though it means “the big bird” it is written phonetically in the way children pronounce “the bird” in French, mistaking the singular article with the plural. Baya also used the title “Le grand zoiseau” for one of her paintings, pictured at right.

“Le Grand Zoiseau” narrates the story of a little girl who wants to marry, and, seeing her mother deny her the right, she takes matters into her own magic hands. The world depicted here is rooted in Kabyle/Amazigh tales and mythology. It features a pet dog able to drink nearly a whole river, pots moving when they are called, talking spit, and neighbours making clever plans when stricken with the diarrhea (I have always enjoyed Kabyle stories’ uninhibited approach to bodily functions and fluids). The story is also striking in its language. It irreverently plays with the frontiers of sentences, mixing the written and the spoken, and jumbling the order of words, to rewrite the rules of what gets written while remaining perfectly enjoyable and intelligible. It is this very style that I encountered in Aziz Chouaki’s first novel, titled Baya, rhapsodie algéroise (Baya, a rhapsody from Algiers) published in 2019 by Bleu Autour editions. I had not then understood his reference nor his inspiration.

To remember them both, I am placing the story in a pot below, and letting my spit talk in the English language. The magic of my translation may not work, but yours can: others’ translations are welcome. The source can be found in the original leaflet here (PDF).

The Great Great Big Bird (Le Grand Zoiseau)

 

 By Baya Mahieddine

Translated by Nadia Ghanem

Once, there was a little girl, and her mother was rather mean. The little girl wanted to marry, but her mother didn’t want that.

So there comes a day when a Mister comes by, and this little girl, she hides him in a hole and covers him with the djifna dish. So now, in the evening, the mother comes in and says, “Someone’s come to visit.” “Oh no, oh no, Mama, no one,” says the little girl. The mother says: “We’ll put henna on everyone in the house.” The henna is brought, and in comes the little girl, and the little dog and the cat, the chickens, the rabbits, all the animals, although not the birds, but the boxes, the tadjin, and even the water jug and the sieve and the basket.

As for the djifna, it doesn’t want to budge—the Mister’s inside. The little girl says: “The djifna’s too old, she can’t walk.” She takes a bit of henna in her hand, and she returns the djifna to its corner.

When night arrives, she asks her mother, “When is it that you’ll sleep?” The mother tells her, “When the dogs, the cats, the goats, the donkey, and all the animals scream and when the house is red, I sleep.”

The little girl lays down with her mother and she does not sleep. Then, when it’s just like this—half morning, half not-morning—she hears all the animals, and the house is all red. She gets up and she spits near her mother’s head, and near her feet, and all around. She spits by the door, and she spits outside and everywhere.

The Mister and the little girl leave together. But the pestle is on the djifna. And it begins—ding dong—to make a noise to wake up the lady.

She calls her daughter, and the spit beside her head answers, “Mummy, I’m here.” So the lady goes back to sleep, but the pestle keeps on making a noise. The mother calls out to the little girl again, and when the spit near the door and the spit outside answer, the lady knows that the girl is gone. She gets up with the little dog and sees her daughter, far, far, far.

She walks, and walks, and she arrives at the river. She can’t go over it and says to her dog: “Quick, drink all the water.” She drinks, poor ting, and her tummy’s all full. She is spent, and still there is water left. So the mother tells her daughter on the other side of the river: “Listen, if you meet animals who fight, or birds, do not separate them.” Then the mother goes back home alone. The others, they go on much further, they walk and walk.

And there, on the way: rabbits who fight, and then chickens, and dogs. The Mister wants to separate them, but the little one doesn’t want it.

A little further, they find birds fighting. There is one, blood running everywhere and nearly no feathers left. So, really then, this Mister, he goes to separate them, and the great great big bird with nearly no feathers takes the man underneath him, under his wing, and they rise up into the sky.

Then they move over the little girl, and the Mister says, “Go straight to the river, you’ll find a little girl with a crooked eye who will come to take all the water with a little dog. Go kill the little girl, and you’ll wear her skin.”

And there the bird, she goes to the river. She waits for the little girl and kills her, then she wears her skin. She takes the pot of water and walks behind the dog until the house. Getting there, she says to a lady, “Where do I put the pot?” The lady tells her, “You no longer know the habits? Place it there!”

And this little girl, there, she always was very sad in this lady’s house, because she ate with the dogs and she slept with the goats and it’s always like this, always like this.

Three days later, the great big bird comes to the roof of the house. He says to the little one, “What are you eating?” She says: “I eat with the dogs, and I sleep with the goats.” And every evening the great great big bird comes, and they always talk the same.

One evening, the neighbor has the runs. He goes out and hears the bird. Next day, he goes to a man who knows lots of things, to learn how to catch the bird, and he does as he’s told: he kills a big sheep. He hangs it outside. He takes a big branch, and all the little birds who come, he hits them with it and doesn’t let them eat. All of a sudden, there comes the great great big bird. He lets him eat, eat, eat. The bird is big and fat, he can’t fly. And the great great big bird lets go of the very very small Mister, just like that. He places him inside cotton and in a scarf. Only milk to drink, and little by little he grows. Then he says, “I am going to marry this little one.”

He gets married and tells the little girl, ”When everyone is at the door to do the drumming, I’ll let the goats go out and you, you go out to put them back in their place so that everyone sees how beautiful you are.”

So the little girl waits in the house. She is brought food and folks fall over right in the middle of the house and break all the plates and dishes seeing how beautiful she is.

All of a sudden, her husband, he lets go of the goats, and the little one goes out to put them back in their places. All the people stop the drumming and look. The brother of the groom asks, “What did you do to make your wife so beautiful like that?”

He tells him, “I put water to boil in a great big pot. I put my wife de-clothed in the basin, and I poured all the boiling water over her.”

And like that he believed! And his wife, poor thing, she died!

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Rabia Djelti - حنين بالنعناع

 

Rabia Djelti is mostly known as a poet but she is also a notable novelist. Her latest novel Peppermint Nostalgia (حنين بالنعناع) co-published in Lebanon and Algeria (2014) tells the story of a young woman Dhaouia who realises she has wings. She becomes aware of a sixth continent in which all the human artists no matter the era they influenced still live. Last year she published the Prophetess (النبية) a long poem in the form of a narration (here is an extract). She is, incidentally, the novelist Amin Zaoui’s other half.

Her latest novel عازب حي المرجان was published last year in 2016 again by Difaf / El-Ikhtilef.
Some of her poetry was translated into French but most such translated works are not easily available or out of stock.


Le roman de Rabia Djelti حنين بالنعناع a été co-publié par Difaf / El-Ikhtilef en 2014. Il raconte l'histoire de Dhaouia, une jeune femme qui a des ailes. Elle devient consciente qu'un sixième continent existe, et raconte son ascension vers ces nouveaux cieux.

Amal Bouchareb - سَكرات نجمة

'Sakarat Nedjma' (Flickers of a Star) was THE thriller of 2015. Bouchareb has woven a very entertaining and daring story around the “Khamsa” (aka the Hand of Fatma), its meaning and the enigma of why it features right in the middle of our Algerian passports, in gold among the green, below the moon crescent and star, above sun rays, aside wheat and olive branches.

Ilyas Mady is found stabbed in his grandfather’s apartment in Telemly, Algiers. Mady is both Italian and Algerian, and his dual citizenship puts pressure on Inspector Ibrahim and his team to find the murderer. Ilias Mady was a world-famous artist who taught art in Turin, and had come back to Algiers at the request of Sheikh Ben Haroun to solve a puzzle. What is the origin of the Khamsa? For Sheikh Abdallah, a historian specialising in ancient secrets, it is originally a Jewish symbol, each fingers of that precious palm representing one of the books of Torah: the Exegesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Devarim. For young Ishaq, symbols don’t have a single point of origin, they come from a shared past in which members of the community have participated. When Ibrahim finds Ben Haroun’s number in the dead man’s pocket and traces Ermano Bergonzi’s calls to Turin, the net takes on an international angle and the enigma becomes deadly.

Sakarat Nedjma is Amal Bouchareb’s first novel. She published a collection of short stories last year. Bouchareb was born in Damascus. She has lived in Italy for many years.


Chapeau bas à l'excellente auteure Amel Bouchareb et son premier roman publie en 2015, le thriller سَكرات نجمة ! Si vous ne l'avez pas lu, je vous le recommande.

Comix 'Fatma n'parapli' by Safia and Soumia Ouarezki

Safia and Soumia Ouarezki are two talented sisters. Their remarkable comix is written in Algerian Derja 'Fatma n'parapli' published by Dalimen editions in 2014.

Safia Ouarezki wrote the scenario, Soumia Ouarezki inked it (the drawings are by Mahmoud Benameur).

If you want to know more about what Fatma n'paraplui is about, follow the arrow -> http://tellemchaho.blogspot.co.uk/…/fatma-nparapli-comix-wr…

Safia and Soumia sont deux soeurs talentueuses et l'ont prouvé avec leur BD en Derja 'Fatma n'parapli' publiée par Dalimen en 2014

Les textes sont de Safia Ouarezki, les dessins en encre sont de Soumia Ouarezki (dessins de Mahmoud Benameur).

Pour en savoir plus sur cette BD, suivez ce lien -> http://tellemchaho.blogspot.co.uk/…/fatma-nparapli-comix-wr…

Zakia Allal - رسائل تتحدى النار والحصار

Zakia Allal, née en 1966, a publié nombre de nouvelles depuis les années 2000, notamment quatre recueils: رسائل تتحدى النار والحصار une série de lettres envoyées par une femme palestinienne à Gaza à son mari qui est parti, شرايين عارية des nouvelles à travers lesquelles le symbolisme du sang qui représente l’amour et la nation est exploré, ainsi que أحرقت سفينة العودة et لعنة المنفى.

En 2015, Zakia Allal a publié un roman عائد إلى قبري, dans lequel elle raconte l’histoire d’un journaliste algérien qui couvre l’Iraq alors qu'il vit lui meme les violences des années 90s.

Son utilisation du réalisme magique et d'éléments fantastiques, presque gothiques, sont des traits qui définissent ses écrits. Vous pouvez lire les nouvelles de Zakia en ligne en libre accès -> شرايين عارية
http://www.syrianstory.com/a.zakia.htm…

Zakia Allal was born in 1966 in Algeria. She has published a number of short-stories between 2000 and 2015, notably four collections with Letters to Defy Fire and Siege (رسائل تتحدى النار والحصار) – a series of letters by a Palestinian woman in Gaza who writes to her husband, gone to try and emigrate to America -, Naked Veins (شرايين عارية) stories in which the symbolism of blood as love and country is explored, The Return Ship Burnt (أحرقت سفينة العودة) and The Curse of Exile (لعنة المنفى).

In 2015, she released a novel Returning to My Grave (عائد إلى قبري), which tells the story of an Algerian journalist covering Iraq just before the country falls. Her use of magic realism and a use of the fantastic, almost gothic, are particularly interesting traits in her short-stories (see شرايين عارية online on open access http://www.syrianstory.com/a.zakia.htm…).

Nadjet Dahmoune and مرايا أمازيغية

Anep editions published Nadjet Dahmoun's short story collection  مرايا أمازيغية  in 2016.

مرايا أمازيغية are short stories told by women of all ages who look back on a defining moment in their past to make peace with it. These stories are painful, often tragic, and according to Dahmoune they are typical of the situations confronted by women in Amazigh society. In مرايا أمازيغية Dahmoune weaves thoughts in Tamazight into the Arabic text. A much needed bilingual combination rare elsewhere.

Nadjet Dahmoun et مرايا أمازيغية, publié par les éditions Anep (2016).

Si dans le reflet d’un miroir, c’est l’image de soi qu’on aperçoit, et c’est aussi une partie des autres qui se dessine. Ce miroir à double réflexion, Nadjet Dahmoune l’a construit dans son recueil de nouvelles Miraya Amazighiya (مرايا أمازيغية), publié par les éditions Anep (2016).

À travers trente nouvelles, trente femmes se racontent en langues arabe et tamazight. Des histoires à plusieurs voix, celle d’une narratrice qui observe ces femmes, et celle de chacune de celle-ci qui, à un moment critique de son parcours, examine les marques que le destin a laissé sur sa mémoire.

Dans ce Miroir Amazigh se reflète des visages comme celui de Na Tasaadit et les sept mouchoirs qui représentent ses mariages, ou de Sherifa qui découvre avec dégoût la perdrix que sa belle-famille a coupée en 35 morceaux; ce qui la décidera à divorcer. On entrevoit aussi des femmes comme Tunissiya qui s’autodétruira en s’inventant un cancer, ou Faouzia qui panse ses plaies chez son fils après que son mari se soit révélé être celui qu’elle a toujours refusé de voir.

Certains reflets se transforment en murmures tant ils sont difficiles à regarder. Comme ceux de Na Hbouba qui a assassiné sa fille, ou Meriem qui se réconcilie avec les tortures qu’elle a subies dans l’enfance.

Nadjet Dahmoune, devenue mémoire collective, raconte les destins très différents de femmes jeunes ou âgées, aux parcours apaisés ou encore hantés, qui ont vécu des drames tellement communs qu’ils en deviendraient presque invisibles si ce n’était justement pour des récits, oraux et écrits, qui les transmettent pour prévenir, et aussi guérir.

Chaque récit, contée dans une langue fraîche et simple, se lit comme si on l’entendait raconter. Des mots mesurés pour dire des vérités complexes, dont l’horreur est relatée tout en suspens, comme un conte d’épouvantes.

En façonnant son recueil sur cette opposition entre douceur et effroi, réalité et fictionalisation, Dahmoune a capturé sagesses et acceptations, aveux et introspections.

La source d’inspiration de Nadjet Dahmoune est la communauté amazigh dont elle est issue comme elle tient à le souligner dans son introduction, mais son recueil et les vies dont elle s’est inspirée s’inscrivent bien au-delà en illustrant l’universalité des souffrances et des circonstances.
En insérant les réflexions de ses personnages en langue tamazight, avec une traduction déguisée en réponse ou introduite entre parenthèse, Nadjet réussi un clin d’œil décomplexé au multilinguisme qui nous est si propre, et enrichi son texte d’une manière souple et naturelle.

Miraya Amazighiya de Nadjet Dahmoune, publié chez les éditions Anep, avril 2016 (pp. 460)

Zoubeida Mameria - Tales from the land of Algeria

 

Interested in Algerian myths and legends ? Here is a discussion around Zoubeida Mameria’s three-volume collection of Algerian myths, Tales from the Land of Algeria (Contes du Terroir Algerien, 2013) on Arabic Literature in English.

* * * * *

this article was originally published on ArabLit

Mythological and folktale characters

As Zoubeida Mameria’s collection illustrates, Algerian myths abound about highly skilled individuals. There are eagle hunters and outstanding horsemen; labourers with carts pulled by lions and snakes; basket-makers spared by errouhbani, the shape-shifter spirits who roam in forests poking fun at humans; barbers who slash throats and gardeners whose bones turn into speaking grapevines; fishermen who feed whole villages with their miraculous catch; midwifes who even help frogs give birth (the midwife paid in coal); coal workers and coals that turn into gold coins; princes who work as carpet weavers (the craft that saves from death); blind ogresses with a fine nose for the best foods who grind wheat; kings who know how to rule.

Mameria’s collection is really the encyclopaedia of her memories in which she mixes French and Algerian Derja.

The CRASC, Algeria’s National Research Centre in Anthropology, had also compiled and released a collection of myths in 2005, Dictionary of Algerian Myths, which were written up in standard Arabic. That collection was more interested in foundational myths, and began not in childhood but in an ancient Amazigh chronology, with the cornerstone myths of Anzar, the capricious god of rain; Tin Hinan, the mother of all Touareg tribes; Yemma Gouraya, the woman-mountain that protects the city of Bejaia; Loundja the devoted sister to her brother transformed into a gazelle; or the tragic love story of Hiziya and her cousin Said.

None retell the story of the farting old man whose daughter Rova tried to protect them against a man-eating ogre. She was herself captured then saved by her four brothers, the first who has an uncanny sense of hearing, the second who sees through walls, the third who runs as fast as the wind blows, and the fourth who’s given Herculean strength (A Vava Inouva).

I found no stories for plumbers in Mameria’s collection, but I learned that the stone of patience (hadjret sabarni or “Stone, give me patience”), could bring me comfort and justice if someone brought it back to Bab El Oued from the Hijaz.

The striking element in all these tales and myths is the sheer number of women in them. They’re here as main characters — and as storytellers — young and old, rich and poor, beautiful or not. All are highly intelligent and endure and outwit the cruelty of fate, and of men.

El-Djazia cycle

“El-Djazia” is an Algerian myth inherited, it seems, from the Banu Hilal. Both the CRASC and Mameria dedicate a special part to this mythical cycle in their volumes. El-Djazia was the chief of a Banu Hilal tribe in Algeria. That much is recorded by Ibn Khaldoun, we are told. She was a woman of unequalled beauty and intelligence, the best warrior and skilled fighter of the tribe. She attracted many admirers, all of whom tried to win her favor. She eventually chose to marry her cousin Dhieb ben Ghanem. A statue of Dhieb’s horse, El Baidha, is reportedly in Ain Beida’s city centre.

El-Djazia is also a metaphor. She represents the village, and her competing admirers are the social projects that the village will have to choose to survive and to eventually prosper. Tradition, modernity, and the elsewhere, or adventure, all fight to win El-Djazia by force or reason while her task is to maintain social order. Any transgression, or misreading of the group’s best interest, will result in social confusion and eventually utter chaos.

Myth and the contemporary Algerian novel

Several Algerian novels are built on this folk metaphor. Nejma by Kateb Yacine, and both El-Djazia and the Dervishes and The South Wind by Abdelhamid Benhadouga are prominent examples. The South Wind (Rih al Djanoub) was published in 1971.

Benhadouga (1925-1996) was, along with Tahar Wattar and “father of the Algerian novel” Ahmed Reda Houhou, part of the first generation of modern Algerian authors who wrote in Arabic. Although we hear a lot about Kateb Yacine, Benhadouga remains relatively ignored, outside of getting his portrait immortalised on a stamp issued by Algeria’s Post Office services this September.

The South Wind is set very soon after independence, when the Algerian government is about to implement its land-redistribution plan. Nafissa, a young university student, returns home to her village for the summer holidays. As soon as she is back, she misses her student life. Spending every day inside the home now weighs on her, and she starts feeling great resentment towards her parents for the patriarchy she only now begins to perceive. She can no longer stand to be in her mother Kheira’s company, and the bullying ways of father Belkadi enrage this once quiet and obedient girl. Belkadi, a wealthy landowner, is more short-tempered than usual. A new government policy means he’s about to lose his land and privileges.

Disturbed by their daughter’s behaviour, Nafissa’s parents begin to speculate as to the cause of her sulking ways. Kheira thinks Nafissa is possessed by a jinn, while Belkadi sees it is time to marry off Nafissa. Kheira calls a sheikh. Belkadi calls the mayor, Malek, his future son-in-law.

Nafissa agrees to see the sheikh, but she won’t agree to marriage. There’s only so much a girl can be forced into. This constitutes an unacceptable refusal for Belkadi, for whom women just don’t have a say. So Nafissa decides to escape, but her naïvely planned flight will tip over her life and send the entire village to a dark and petrifying end.

What happens to myths when social order has broken down, and the social fabric is tearing? Do monsters pour out onto the streets? When villages metamorphosed into towns, craftsmen and their trades adapted and moved with their stories. Era to decades, villages to cities, we’ve all gone from craft to crafty. That’s when plumber story cycles began probably.

Nafissa, El-Djazia, Loundja, Rova, Tin Hinan, Hiziya, and the many women of Algerian myths and legends have shown us which way not to take. What will Algeria choose? Whatever it maybe, may its story be beautiful; may it extend like a thread of wool; may whoever hears it, remember it always. As the Tamazight formula to open a story goes: Amachaho.