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Taous was born to a Berber Kabyle family who converted to Roman Catholicism
The Google search engine celebrated the birth anniversary of the Algerian writer and singer Taous Amrouche, who became the first Algerian woman to publish a novel.
Her full name is Marie-Louis Tawoos Amrouche, and she was born in 1913 and died in 1976 in Saint-Michel-L’Osservatoire, France.
Tawoos was born into a Berber tribal family that converted to Roman Catholicism, and she was the only daughter in a family of six children. Her family moved to Tunisia to escape “persecution” after they converted to Catholicism, and Tawoos grew up in a multicultural environment, as she speaks Kabyle fluently and writes in French.
The first Algerian novelist
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In addition to her passion for writing, Tawoos’ star shone in the world of music, in which she told a forgotten narrative about the Amazigh tribal world in Algeria.
Taous became the first Algerian woman to publish a novel in 1947. She is the daughter of Fatima Ait Mansour Amrouche – a famous singer in the Berber Kabylie region, who is said to have taught Taous songs and stories and taught her the oral tradition.
Marie began translating Kabyle songs in collaboration with her older brother, John Amrouche, and her mother in 1936. In 1939, Marie received a scholarship to study in Spain, and there she conducted research on the relationship between Berber and Spanish folk songs.
She published her first autobiographical novel, “The Black Sapphire,” in 1947. It was the first novel of its kind to be published in France by a Maghreb writer. Then she published “The Magic Seed,” followed by a group of other books, including “The Way of Tambourines” 1960, “The Magic Seed” 1966, “The Imaginary Lover” 1975, “Intimate Notebooks,” and “My Mother’s Solitude” (1995), published after her death.
In 1966, Tawoos Amrouche won an award in France for her writings defending the Amazigh heritage and women. She was also honored as the first woman from North Africa to publish a novel.
In addition to her passion for writing, Tawoos’ star shone in the world of music, in which she told a forgotten narrative about the Amazigh tribal world in Algeria. She performed many Amazigh songs through the “Ashwiq” singing style, which is a type of tribal art and Amazigh music in which the women of the Kabylie region in Algeria specialized. . In this context, the singer released a number of albums, including “Berber Tribal Songs” in 1967, “Songs from the Atlas Mountains” in 1971, and “Songs of the Millstone and the Cradle” in 1975.
Hybrid civilization
The Taous Amrouche family was among the elite of Algerian Kabyle intellectuals who fled their country after converting to Roman Catholicism, after suffering from “persecution” in their homeland for ideological reasons.
Her mother, Fatima Ait Mansour (whom Tawoos always describes as a fruitful tree), was one of the founders of the feminist movement in Algeria and a poet and novelist who wrote the book “The History of My Life.” As for her brother, Jean Amroush, who said, “I write in French and cry in Amazigh,” he was a poet and activist. He published in Tunisia, with the help of his friend, the French writer Armand Guibert, two poetry collections, the first entitled “Ashes” and the second under the name “Secret Star.”
During his time living with his family in Tunisia, he also wrote poems and critical articles in several Tunisian magazines, and gave lectures in Tunisia. In 1939, he published in the capital a collection of poems entitled “Berber Songs from Kabyle Lands,” in which he translated Berber poems that he learned from his mother, Fatima Ait Mansour, into French.
Tawoos Amroush says about herself: “I am a hybrid of civilization,” as she repeatedly expressed her suffering of being torn between two languages and two cultures, between French and Amazigh, and between Europe and the Maghreb.
Tawoos was afflicted with cancer, from which she died in Saint Michel on April 2, 1976, and was buried in France.