1882 - 1967
Kabyle Berber writer and mother of Jean and Taos Amrouche.
Fadhma At Mansour was raised in a mission school for girls in Algeria's Kabyle Berber region, where she became one of the first Kabyle girls to learn to read and write French. She converted to Christianity in 1899 following her marriage to Belkacemou Amrouche. Facing a difficult economic situation, the couple moved to Tunis in 1906. She gave birth to eight children, two of whom (Jean and Taos) went on to become key figures in Algeria's Berber identity movement. In 1956 Amrouche returned to Kabylia. Three years later, following the death of her husband, she emigrated to France.
Fadhma Amrouche is best known for her autobiography My Life Story, the first published memoir by a Kabyle woman. The work recounts her difficult childhood in Kabylia and her experiences raising a family as an immigrant in Tunis. Although she wrote most of the narrative in 1946, in keeping with her wishes it was not published until after her husband's death. Amrouche's legacy also includes the transmission of dozens of Berber stories, poems, and songs, which she taught to her son Jean and her daughter Taos, who published and recorded them. Fadhma Amrouche is now revered by Berber activists for her documentation of Berber culture.
Bibliography
Amrouche, Fadhma At Mansour. My Life Story: The Autobiography of a Berber Woman, translated by Dorothy S. Blair. London: The Women's Press, 1988.
— JANE E. GOODMAN
