We didn’t wait until having read many of her books before we thought of inviting her to share our view on Algeria.

Maïssa Bey is a woman who writes in French but lives in Algeria and who talks about the past with a remarkable equity. With an unbelievable but always retained intensity, she speaks about the distressed history, our shared history, with a sense of humbleness and without judgement, despite much suffering. "I am a scar of colonisation", she says.

Meeting her, at her home in Sidi Bel Abbès, we discover we have the same desire for sharing and brotherhood. Her text, "Are you not the oasis where I dream" ? which has been specifically written for this book, and which accompanies with generosity our look on Algeria, is an intimistic and touching picture of a woman’s world of this country, that only one of them could so delicately unveil.

(This text is to be read in our travelogue on chapter II, printed on a small notebook)

Biblio.

Bio.

Au commencement était la mer - Éd. Marsa, 1996

Nouvelles d'Algérie - Éd. Grasset, 1998

Great award from la nouvelle de la Société des gens de lettres

Cette fille-là - Éd. de l'Aube, 2001

Award Marguerite Audoux

Entendez-vous dans les montagnes - Éd. l'Aube, 2002

Sous le jasmin la nuit - Éd. l'Aube, 2004

Surtout ne te retourne pas, Éd. l'Aube, 2005 -

Prix Cybèle 2005

Bleu, blanc, vert - Éd. l'Aube, 2007

Pierre, Sang, Papier ou Cendre - Éd. l'Aube, 2008

Award du roman francophone SILA

L'une et l'autre - Éd. l'Aube, 2009

Puisque mon coeur est mort - Éd. l'Aube, 2010

Award de l'Afrique Méditerranée/Maghreb

Maïssa Bey, algerian writer

THE GUEST

. . .

Maïssa Bey

C L A I R E  &  R E N O  M A R C A