Marie-Louise-Taos Amrouche (March 1913 – 2 April 1976) was an Algerian writer and singer. In 1947, she became the first Algerian woman to publish a novel.

Biography

She was born in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, into a family of Kabyle

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

converts, the only daughter in a family of six sons."Marguerite Taos Amrouche"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Her family had moved to Tunisia to escape persecution after their conversion in Algeria. Her mother Fadhma Aït Mansour, who was a famous Kabyle singer,"Amrouche, Marguerite Taos (Algeria)", Literary Map of Africa
University Libraries, Ohio State University. had a great impact on her life, and her literary style would reflect the oral traditions of the

Kabylie Kabylia or Kabylie (; in Kabyle language, Kabyle: Tamurt n leqbayel; in Tifinagh: ⵜⴰⵎⵓⵔⵜ ⵏ ⵍⴻⵇⴱⴰⵢⴻⵍ; ), meaning "Land of the Tribes" is a mountainous coastal region in northern Algeria and the homeland of the Kaby ...

Berber people of her mother's heritage. Amrouche received her elementary and secondary education in Tunis,"Taos-Amrouche, Marguerite (Marie-Louise)", in Hsain Ilahiane, ''Historical Dictionary of the Berbers (Imazighen)''
Scarecrow Press, 2006, p. 120. and in 1935 went to France for studies at the École Normale at

Sèvres Sèvres (, ) is a French Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a populatio ...

. From 1936, in collaboration with her elder brother Jean Amrouche and her mother, Amrouche collected and began to interpret Kabyle songs. In 1939, at the Congrès de Chant de Fès, she received a scholarship to study at the Casa Velasquez in Spain, where she researched the ties between Berber and Spanish popular songs. Her autobiographical first novel, ''Jacinthe noir'', was published in 1947 and is one of the earliest ever published in French by a North African woman writer. With her compilation of tales and poems ''La Grain magique'' in 1966, she took the ''nom de plume'' Marguerite-Taos, Marguerite being her mother's

Christian name A Christian name, sometimes referred to as a baptismal name, is a religious personal name given on the occasion of a Christian baptism, though now most often given by parents at birth. In English-speaking cultures, a person's Christian name ...

. While she wrote in French, she sang in Kabyle. Her first album ''Chants berbères de Kabylie'' (1967), which was a great success, was a collection of traditional Kabyle songs that had been translated into French by her brother Jean. She recorded several other albums, including ''Chants sauvés de l’oubli'' ("Songs Saved from Oblivion"), ''Hommage au chant profond'' ("Homage to a Profound Song"), ''Incantations, méditations et danses sacrées berbères'' (1974), and ''Chants berbères de la meule et du berceau'' (1975). She was an activist in

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

issues and was among the founders of Académie berbère in 1966. She died in Saint-Michel-l'Observatoire in France.

Bibliography

* ''Jacinthe noire'' (1947) – reprint Joëlle Losfeld (1996), * ''La Grain magique'' (1966) – reprint La Découverte (2000), * ''Rue des tambourins'' (1969) – reprint Joëlle Losfeld (1996), * ''L’Amant imaginaire'' (1975)

Selected discography

* ''Chants berbères de Kabylie'' (1967) * ''Chants De L'Atlas (Traditions Millénaires Des Berbères D'Algérie)'' (1970) * ''Incantations, méditations et danses sacrées berbères'' (1974) * ''Chants berbères de la meule et du berceau'' (1975) * ''Au Théatre De La Ville'' (1977)

References

External links

Bio details, bibliomonde.net
– in French * {{DEFAULTSORT:Amrouche, Taos 1913 births 1976 deaths Writers from Tunis Kabyle people Algerian Roman Catholics Algerian women novelists Algerian novelists 20th-century Algerian women writers 20th-century Algerian writers 20th-century novelists Berber Christians Berber writers Berber musicians 20th-century Algerian women singers Berber-language singers of Algeria Berber women writers Berber women musicians

Biography

Bibliography

Selected discography

Further reading

References

External links