Ahlam Mosteghanemi
Algerian writer
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Biography
Early life and education
Mosteghanemi's family was originally from Constantine in eastern Algeria. Her father, an Algerian nationalist, was imprisoned following the 1945 Sétif riots in which two of his brothers were killed. He was released in 1947 and the family relocated to Tunis, Tunisia, where Mosteghanemi was born in 1953. Her father continued his activism and support of Algerian independence. After Algeria gained independence in 1962 he took prominent positions in the government of Ahmed Ben Bella. In 1965, the Boumediene coup d'état removed Ben Bella from power, and her father suffered a mental breakdown and was sent to a hospital in Algiers. His mental struggles and the continued political turmoil in Algeria left him resentful, confused, and disillusioned.
In the absence of her father, Mosteghanemi, as the eldest sibling, provided for her family by working as a radio host. At the age of seventeen, she became popular in Algeria with a poetic daily show, Hammassat (Whispers). In 1973, she became the first woman to publish a compilation of poetry in Arabic when she published Ala Marfa al Ayam (To the Day's Haven). This was followed in 1976 by Al Kitaba fi Lahdat Ouray (The Writing in a Moment of Nudity). Mosteghanemi belonged to the first generation in Algeria that was able to study and write in Arabic, after more than a century of prohibition by the French.
Mosteghanemi received her first degree in Literature from the University of Algiers. Following involvement in women's rights activism, she was then denied enrolment in a Master's programme at the same university, with the board of directors stating that her freedom of expression would have a negative effect on the other students. She was also expelled from the Union of Algerian Writers for not conforming to the established political line. Mosteghanemi consequently pursued her doctoral studies in France, earning a PhD in sociology from Sorbonne University with her thesis, later published as Algérie, femmes et écritures (Algeria, Women, and Writings) in 1985, about the representation of women in both Francophone and Arabic literature.
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Literary career
It was during Mosteghanemi's fifteen years she spent in Paris writing for various magazines and fragments of what would, after four years, become a novel that she transitioned from poetry to prose, stating that "When we lose a love, one writes a poem, when we lose our homeland, one writes a novel". She said Algeria was never far from her mind. "There are countries that we live in and countries that live in us".
In 1993, Mosteghanemi settled in Lebanon and her first novel, Zakirat el Jassad (Memory of the Flesh), was published. The editor of publishing house Dar Al Adab, described the novel as a poetic love story, told with political bravado, that echoed the disappointment of a generation of Arabs, and predicted that it would be a success throughout the Arab world. In a letter to the author, contemporary Arab poet Nizar Qabbani said, "This novel gave me vertigo." President Ben Bella said from exile, "Ahlam is an Algerian sun that illuminates the Arab world".
Memory of the Flesh earned Mosteghanemi the Naguib Mahfouz Prize in 1998, the Arabic equivalent of the Goncourt, and the Nour Prize for the best female work in the Arabic language. The jury for the "Ahlam is a light that shines in darkness. She was able to break out of the linguistic exile into which French colonialism had relegated Algerian intellectuals." By 2008, Memory of the Flesh had entered its 19th edition and had sold over 130,000 copies.
Mosteghanemi continued her literary career with two sequels: Fawda el Hawas (The Chaos of Senses) in 1997 and Aber Sareer” (Bed Hopper) in 2003.
In 2010, she published Nessyan.com (The Art of Forgetting), a break-up manual for women, which brought her closer to a female audience.
In 2012, her novel, El Aswad Yalikou Biki (Black Suits You So Well), was published. The story described the struggle of a young Algerian teacher whose father, a singer, had been killed by terrorists opposed to any form of art and joy in society. The novel addresses the challenges of standing up not only to terrorism, but also to the power of money and the media.
In 2001, Mosteghanemi established the Malek Haddad Literary Prize to encourage more Algerians to write in Arabic.
Since June 2008, she has been a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations.
Personal life
Mosteghanemi married Lebanese journalist Georges El Rassi in Paris in 1976. They have three sons together and live in Beirut, Lebanon.