Biography

Mouloud Mammeri (in Amazigh: Mulud At Mɛemmeṛ), born December 28, 1917 in Taourirt Mimoun, Kabylie (Algeria) and died February 26, 1989 in a car accident in Aïn Defla in Algeria, is a writer, anthropologist, linguist specializing in Berber (Amazigh) language and culture. His most famous works are The Forgotten Hill (1952), The Sleep of the Just (1955) and L'Opium et le Bâton (1965). He did his primary education in his native village. In 1928, he went to his uncle living in Rabat (Morocco), where the latter was then the head of the private secretariat of Sultan Sidi Mohammed (future King Mohammed V) and the general intendant of the Royal Palace. Four years later, he returned to Algiers and continued his studies at the Lycée Bugeaud (current Lycée Émir Abdelkader, in Bab El Oued, Algiers).