Amrouche, Jean (1906-62). Algerian poet, son of the above. He benefited from a French education in Tunisia and Paris, and became a teacher. He is considered the founder of Algerian poetry written in French; his reputation spread through lectures, articles, and radio programmes. On his return to Algeria he worked with the Ministry of Information, and founded the review L'Arche in 1943. He had various posts in Algerian radio, but was sacked for political reasons in 1958. In the Algerian War, he espoused the Algerian cause (see his poem ‘Le Combat algérien’), but fought for peace and was one of the mediators between de Gaulle and Ferhat Abbas. He did not live to see Algerian independence.
Amrouche was primarily a poet, though he published very little. It was through poetry that he could express the anguish of his own and his people's situation. Cendres (1934) is the cry of the colonized against the colonizers who have brought death, destruction, indignity, and dispossession (cendres). The poet, perceived as a prophet, will be able to recapture the innocence of childhood, to search for his roots, his ancestors: ‘Je veux trouver ma Famille.’ In 1937 he published Étoile secrète, a metaphysical journey in search of God and Man couched in biblical language; in order to counteract despair, one had to believe in a merciful God and have faith in Man.
Amrouche returned to his roots and ancestral culture with his translations of Chants berbères de Kabylie (1939). His introduction to the poems, together with articles on indigenous poetry (e.g. ‘Pour une poésie africaine’, 1943), shows his interest in national identity and purpose. He developed this at greater length in his important essay L'Éternel Jugurtha, proposition sur le génie africain (1946), a description of the colonizers and the colonized, with Jugurtha rising up against his enemies and throwing off his shackles. Jugurtha represents the North African who, like Amrouche, feels the tension of two cultures: ‘La France est l'esprit de mon âme, l'Algérie est l'âme de mon esprit.’
[Ethel Tolansky]
Bibliography
- R. Toulgoat-le-Baut, Jean Amrouche: Itinéraire d'un colonisé (1992)
