Yacine Kateb

Olivia C. Harrison (University of Southern California)

Ed. by Lia Brozgal, University of California, Los Angeles
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 8.1.1: North African Writing and Culture: Arabic, Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Lia Brozgal (University of California, Los Angeles), Helen Rachel Cousins (Birmingham Newman University), Ziad Elmarsafy (King's College London), Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Dalia Mostafa (University of Manchester), Nora Parr (SOAS, University of London), Rita Sakr (Maynooth University)

Dates

Born 2 Aug 1929
Died 28 Oct 1989
Activity 1946-1989

Places

Born in Algeria
Active in Algeria; France

Cultural Identities

North African/ Maghrebian French

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist
Poet

Resources

Kateb's Works

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A French-language Algerian writer of poetry, plays, novels, and satires who turned to popular theater in the spoken languages of Algeria (Algerian Arabic and Kabyle) in the last fifteen years of his life, Kateb Yacine (Kateb is his surname) was one of the founding figures of modern Algerian literature. Born in north-east Algeria in 1929, almost a century after France invaded Algiers, Kateb was one of the first writers to denounce French colonial rule in his fictional writings, most notably the novel

Nedjma

(1956) and the trilogy of plays published under the title

Le cercle des représailles

[

The Circle of Reprisals

] (1959). A columnist for the communist newspaper

Alger Républicain

in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Kateb pursued his career as a dissident writer after Algerian…

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2777 words

Citation: Harrison, Olivia C.. "Yacine Kateb". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 August 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12708, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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