Mohammed Dib
Mohammed Dib (Arabic: محمد ديب; 21 July 1920 – 2 May 2003) was an Algerian author. He wrote over 30 novels, as well as numerous short stories, poems, and children's literature in the French language. He is probably Algeria's most prolific and well-known writer. His work covers the breadth of 20th century Algerian history, focusing on Algeria's fight for independence.
Life
Dib was born in Tlemcen in French Algeria, near the border with Morocco, into a middle-class family which had descended into poverty. After losing his father at a young age, Dib started writing poetry at 15. At the age of 18, he started working as a teacher in nearby Oujda in Morocco. In his twenties and thirties he worked in various capacities as a weaver, teacher, accountant, interpreter (for the French and British military), and journalist (for newspapers including Alger Républicain and Liberté, an organ of the Algerian Communist Party). In 1952, two years before the Algerian revolution, he married a French woman, joined the Algerian Communist Party and visited France. In the same year he published his first novel La Grande Maison (The Great House). Dib was a member of the Generation of '52 — a group of Algerian writers which included Albert Camus and Mouloud Feraoun.
