1953 -
Algerian writer.
Ahlam Mostaghanemi is acknowledged as the first woman writer of Arabic in Algeria, where she was born and raised and where she received a university education. Her first collection of poetry, Ala marfa al-ayyam (On the haven of days), was published in Algeria in 1973, and two more poetry collections followed. Before emigrating to France, Mostaghanemi also presented radio programs about poetry. In Paris, she completed her Ph.D. in sociology at the Sorbonne under the direction of Jacques Berque (1982). Her doctoral dissertation was published in 1985 as a book, Algérie: Femmes et écritures (Algeria: Women and writing). Mostaghanemi's novels brought her fame, especially Dhakirat al-jasad (1993). A first, quite literal, translation into English, Memory in the Flesh (2000), was revised and reissued in 2003 with the same title. Her second and third novels, Fawda al-hawwass (Chaos of the senses, 1998) and Abir sarir (Passing by a bed, 2003) have also attracted critical attention. Memory in the Flesh has won major literary prizes, including the Nur award for best literary work by a woman in Arabic (1996) and the Naguib Mahfouz medal for fiction (1998). The novel's insistence on the Arabic language - in its dedication to Malek Haddad and the author's father, who could neither read nor write Arabic - is central to its message and role as a postcolonial Algerian novel. Memory in the Flesh treats not only the ravages colonialism has exacted on its characters and country, but also Algeria's current problems. It is narrated by a man and poses questions about gender roles. Mostaghanemi's second novel uses characters from the first but replaces the male voice with a female narrator. Critics have commented extensively on the interplay between gender, language, and nation in these novels. Mostaghanemi lives in Beirut, where all of her novels have been published to consistent critical acclaim.
Bibliography
Bamia, Aïda A. "Dhakirat al-jasad (The Body's Memory): A New Outlook on Old Themes." Research in African Literatures 28.3 (1997): 85-93.
McLarney, Ellen. "Unlocking the Female in Ahlam Mustaghanami." Journal of Arabic Literature 33.1 (2003): 24-44
Mostaghanemi, Ahlam. Memory in the Flesh. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2003.
— MICHELLE HARTMAN
