Mohammed Dib

Mohammed Dib (1920-2003) was an Algerian writer, poet and playwright also wrote short stories. He founded French language Algerian literature in 1950s. He worked as interpreter during World War II for Allied Forces in North Africa. He published his first novel La Grand Maisom in 1952. He sided with nationalist forces during Algerian War of Independence and was deposed and exiled to France in 1959. He later opted for a life of solitude.

Wisdom & Quotes

• A man is likewise form and expression, a written sign thrown unto boundless matter, an undifferentiated word of what is. I've therefore been created in the image of the inscriptions that, as a child, I used to project unto my bits of bone, stone, wood, and iron, probably even in the image of a single one of their words, a single one of their letters.

- My Talisman

• Beware that the one who reads is the same as the book, the same as what is read, the same as the speaker and the same as what is spoken without being the word.
• Humiliation, slavery, fear have perverted us to the bone; we no longer look like men. ... Men must be granted the respect due to them.

- Le Metier a tisser

• Me, you - we're no more than travelers.
• At present, (in the desert) an exasperating clarity reigns. The sky has become less visible than water in a jar. Black peaks, spines of granite, a twisted tree are sculpted in this atmosphere basted with reflections. All that remains: a countryside of imperishable contours.
• A fire had been lit, and it would never be extinguished; its bloody flames would not stop until their sinister glow had been thrown across the entire nation.
• The countryside liberates its own distant points. Everywhere else, distance is a living relationship. Here, no such thing. No relationship, no lasting exchange. It only exists in and for itself, knowing only itself, and you reach the boundary of your powerlessness, of human powerlessness.

Aminu Kano