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)
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
Maïssa Bey attended University Literature courses in Algiers; she now teaches French in Sidi Bel Abbès in the west of Algeria.
Maïssa Bey lives in Sidi Bel Abbès where she co-founded with female friends in 2000 the cultural association "Paroles et Ecritures" which opened a library in 2005. She has written several novels, short stories, poems and essays. In 2005, she was awarded by the Algerian Grand Prix des Libraires for the whole of her production.
C L A I R E & R E N O M A R C A
Claire & Reno MARCA - Travelogues - Illustrations - Photography - Films - Travel sketchbook - Tél : + 33 (0) 2 97 24 37 45 -
All photos & drawings © Claire & Reno Marca - 2014 - All rights reserved - Legal notice