Fadhma Aït Mansour Amrouche

Fadhma Aït Mansour was born in the mountain village of Tizi Hibel in Greater Kabylia. Confronting the harsh colonial reality and social isolation as an illegitimate child converted to Catholicism, she drew upon an extraordinary reservoir of oral memory to preserve the ancient songs, proverbs, and poetry of the Djurdjura.

She transmitted this rich oral patrimony to her children, the celebrated writers and intellectuals Jean Amrouche and Taos Amrouche. Her moving autobiography 'Histoire de ma vie', written in secret and published in 1968, remains one of the most powerful, lucid testimonies of an indigenous Algerian woman's life under colonial rule.