Muhammad Dib

Dib, Muhammad 

Born July 21, 1920, in Tlemcen. Algerian writer. Writes in French.

In the realistic trilogy Algeria Dib re-created typical representatives of the Algerian poor (vol. 1, The Large House, 1952; Russian translation, 1955), fellahin (vol. 2, The Fire, 1954; Russian translation, 1956), and artisans (vol. 3, The Weaver’s Trade, 1957; Russian translation, 1959), all of whom are prompted by World War II to seek social and national liberation. The common people find the meaning of life in revolution in the novel African Summer (1959; Russian translation, 1962). The atmosphere of war is embodied in apocalyptic visions in the novel Who Remembers the Sea (1962) and the novella The Merciless Night (1963; Russian translation, 1964). Dib’s declaration “The Time of Responsibility Has Passed” (1964) revealed the source of his spiritual crisis to be in modernistic myth-creating (the novel Run to the Wild Bank, 1964) and a treatment of history, social conditions, and characters that is impoverished by naturalism (the novel Dance of the King, 1968). Only in the cycle of novellas Talisman (1966) does Dib’s symbolism lose its abstractness and become expressive of the tragic nature of reality itself.

WORKS

Dieu en Barbaric. Paris, 1970.
Formulaires. Paris, 1970.
In Russian translation:
V kafe: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1958.

REFERENCES

Lévi-Valensi, J., and J. E. Bencheikh. Dw>0« algérien. Paris, 1967. Khatibi, A. Le Roman maghrébin. Paris, 1968.

V. P. BALASHOV