Habib Tengour
Biography
Habib Tengour was born in Algeria in 1947 and followed his parents into exile in Paris in 1958, where he studied sociology and became politically sensitive. He still commutes between Algeria and Paris. As an author of the second generation of migrants, Tengour is regarded as a representative of an écriture nomade who traces the cultural memory of Algeria in the crosshairs of West-Eastern influences and of course also the Algerian exile identity, which from the beginning of the 1990s, since his return to Paris, more than ever in the focus of his interest.
Last Released
The old man from the mountain
He is considered "one of the most powerful and imaginative poetic voices of the post-colonial francophone Maghreb" (Pierre Joris). In an equally visionary manner, Habib Tengour takes up topics in his books that only come into the media focus years later. InThe old man from the mountain, on which he wrote from 1977-1981, he traces religious totalitarianism, asks about the intellectual's responsibility in the face of war, corruption and ideological hardening, the suitability of religion, science and politics as viable paths to "truth".
Translated from the French by Regina Keil-Sagawe
