Kateb Yacine

Kateb Yacine was born on the 2^nd August 1929 or the 6^th August 1929; he died on the 28^th October 1989. He was an Algerian writer popular for his novels and plays. He wrote both in the French and the Algerian languages and his advocacy of the Berber cause.

source of picture: fr.wikipedia.org

Biography

Kateb Yacine was officially born on the 6^th August 1929 n Constantine, but it is likely that his birth took place four days before the official date of birth.

Kateb Yacine was born into a scholarly maraboutic Berber family from the Sedrata in the western Souk Ahras. His maternal grandfather was the bach adel, of the deputy judge of the qadi in the Conde Smendou. His father was a barrister and the family came after him via many assignments in various parts of the country. Kateb Yacine attended the Sedrata Quran School in the year 1937 and then in the year 1938, he went to the French school in the Lafayette in the little Kabylie where the family relocated to. In the year 1941 he attached himself with the colonial college of Setif as a boarder in the school.

Kateb Yacine was in the 3^rd year in the college when the demonstration of the 8^th May 1945 started. He took part in the demonstrations that finished with the massacre of over five thousand Algerians by the French army and police. Three days after that, he was arrested and jailed for two months. From that point, Kateb Yacine became a partisan for the cause of the country. He was expelled from the secondary school and he watched his mother’s psychological health go down, passing through a time of misery and engrossed in the writings of Lautréamont and Baudelaire, the father sent him to the high school in Bone, Annaba, and it was there that he met Nedjma, an already married cousin of his and with him he lived for about 8 months.

While Kateb Yacine was living with the cousin, he published his first collection of poetry in the year 1946. He had already become politicized and as such he began to deliver lectures under the auspices of the PPA. He went to Paris in the year 1947, into the lion’s den as he described it.

In May of the year 1947, Kateb Yacine joined the communist party of the country and delivered lecture in the 'Salle des Sociétés savantes' on the emir Abd al-Qadir. At the time of his second visit to France, the next year, he published his book called 'Nedjma ou le Poème du Couteau' in the revue'Le Mercure de France'.

Kateb Yacine was a journalist at the daily Algier republicain between the year 1949 and the year 1951, his first great reportage came from the Saudi Arabia and Sudan. After going back to his country, he published an article that denounced the swindling at the holy place of Mecca.

After the death of his father in the year 1950, Kateb Yacine worked as a long shore man in Algiers. He went back to Paris where he stayed until the year 1959. At the time he was in Paris, he worked with the Malek Heddad, and formed a relationship with M’hamed Issiakhem and in the year 1954; he spoke extensively with Bertold Brecht. In the year 1954, the revue Esprit published his play called 'Le cadavre encerclé' that was staged by Jean-Marie Serreau but was banned in the country, France.his book Nedjma was published in the year 1956. At the time of the Algerian war for independence, Kateb Yacine was forced against his will to leave the country for a long time because of the he faced from the DST. He lived in many places and did many odd works in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia and the USSR.

After staying in Cairo, Kateb Yacine went back again to his country in the year 1962, shortly after the independence of the country. He continued with his writing for the Alger republican, but he constantly traveled between the year 1963 and the year 1967 to Moscow, France and Germany. 'Alger républicain', which he wrote between the year 1954 and the year 1959, was acted in France.  In the year 1963, his book called 'Les Ancêtres redoublent de férocité', was acted in the year 1967 in Paris. 'La Poudre d'intelligence' was also acted in Paris in the year 1967 and then dialectal Algerian Arabic in Algiers in the year 1969. In the year 1969, Kateb Yacine published 6 essays on “our brothers the Indian” in Alger republican and he narrated his meeting with the Jean-Paul Sartre when his mother was being dedicated to the psychiatric hospital in Blida. Kateb Yacine went to Vietnam in the year 1967 and left the book he was writing called  'La Rose de Blida' and wrote 'L'Homme aux sandales de caoutchouc', a controversial play that celebrated Ho Chi Minh that was published, acted and translated in Arabic in the year 1970.

That same year he went back to get a more comfortable home in Algeria. At this time he had a crucial change in philosophy; he stopped writing in the French language and started working on the popular theatre, epical and satirical acted in dialectal Arabic.

Between the year 1972 and the year 1975, Kateb Yacine went with the tours for the works, 'Mohamed prends ta valise' and 'La Guerre de deux mille ans' to France as well as to the German Democratic Republic.

In the year 1986, Kateb Yacine circulated an excerpt of a play about Nelson Mandela and in the year 1987, he got the Grand Prix National des Lettres in France.

In the year 1988, the Avignon Festival acted 'Le Bourgeois sans culotte ou le spectre du parc Monceau', a played that was written at the request of the Arras Cultural Centre for the anniversary memorial of the French Revolution.

Taught in the language of the colonizer, he took the French language to be the Algerians’ spoil of the independence war.

Kateb Yacine is the father of three children, Hans, Nadia and Amazigh Kateb, a musician for the band Gnawa Diffusion.

Bibliography

Books by Kateb

Ø  Soliloques, poèmes, Bône, Ancienne imprimerie Thomas, 1946. Réédition (avec une introduction de Kateb Yacine), Alger, Bouchène, 1991, 64 pages.

Ø  Abdelkader et l'indépendance algérienne, Alger, En Nahda, 1948, 47 pages.

Ø  Nedjma, roman, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1956, 256 pages. (English translation by Richard Howard, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991, ISBN 0-8139-1312-8 and ISBN 0-8139-1313-6 [pbk.])

Ø  Le Cercle des représailles, théâtre, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1959, 169 pages [contient Le Cadavre encerclé, La Poudre d'intelligence, Les Ancêtres redoublent de férocité, Le Vautour, introduction d'Edouard Glissant: Le Chant profond de Kateb Yacine].

Ø  Le Polygone étoilé, roman, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1966, 182 pages.

Ø  Les Ancêtres redoublent de férocité, [avec la fin modifiée], Paris, collection TNP, 1967.

Ø  L'Homme aux sandales de caoutchouc, hommages au Vietnam et à Ho Chi Minh, théâtre, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1970, 288 pages.

Ø  Boucherie de l'espérance,oeuvres théâtrales, [quatre pièces, contient notamment Mohammed prends ta valise, 1971, et Le Bourgeois sans culotte], Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1999, 570 pages. ISBN 2-02-033905-6

Ø  L'Œuvre en fragments, Inédits littéraires et textes retrouvés, rassemblés et présentés par Jacqueline Arnaud, Paris, Sindbad 1986, 448 pages (ISBN 2-7274-0129-9).

Ø  Le Poète comme un boxeur, entretiens 1958-1989, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1994. ISBN 2-02-022193-4

Ø  Minuit passé de douze heures, écrits journalistiques 1947-1989, textes réunis par Amazigh Kateb, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1999, 360 pages. ISBN 2-02-038730-1

Ø  Parce que c'est une femme, introduction de Zebeïda Chergui, théâtre, [contient un entretien avec Kateb Yacine avec El Hanar Benali, 1972, La Kahina ou Dilhya; Saout Ennissa, 1972; La Voix des femmes et Louise Michel et la Nouvelle Calédonie], Paris, Editions des Femmes, 2004, 174 pages.