Paul Celan was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți, in the then Kingdom of Romania, and adopted the pseudonym "Paul Celan". He became one of the major German-language poets of the post-World War II era.
Kateb Yacine was an Algerian writer notable for his novels and plays, both in French and Algerian Arabic, and his advocacy of the Berber cause.
Jean Epstein was a French filmmaker, film theorist, literary critic, and novelist. Although he is remembered today primarily for his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, he directed three dozen films and was an influential critic of literature and film from the early 1920s through the late 1940s. He is often associated with French Impressionist Cinema and the concept of photogénie.
Pierre Joris is a Luxembourg-American poet, essayist, translator, and anthologist. He has moved between Europe, North Africa & the US for 55 years, publishing over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations & anthologies — most recently Fox-trails, -tales & -trots: Poems & Proses, the translations Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan (FSG) & Microliths: Posthumous Prose of Paul Celan (CMP) & A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly. Earlier, Arabia Deserta, Conversations in the Pyrenees with Adonis, & The Book of U/ Le livre des cormorans.
Si Mohand ou-Mhand n At Hmadouch, also known as Si Mhand, was a widely known Berber-Amazigh poet from Kabylie in Algeria. Called the "Kabyle Verlaine" by French scholars, his works were translated by fellow Algerians Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Boulifa and one of the translations was Les poémes de Si-Mohand (1960). Due to difference of information and sources, some details of his life are not clearly known.
Pierre Nora is a French historian elected to the Académie française on 7 June 2001. He is known for his work on French identity and memory. His name is associated with the study of new history. He is the brother of the late Simon Nora, former French official.
André du Bouchet was a French poet.
Philippe Jaccottet was a Swiss Francophone poet and translator.
Jean Paulhan was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member of the Académie française. He was born in Nîmes (Gard) and died in Paris.
Titinga Frédéric Pacéré is a Burkinabé solicitor, writer, poet and griot and founder and curator of the Musée de Manega museum in Burkina Faso. He studied in Abidjan. He has written over twenty books and published 60 volumes and has been awarded the medal of honour of the Association of French speaking writers (A.D.E.L.F.).
Abu Muhammad Salih b. Abi Sharif ar-Rundi was a poet, writer, and literary critic from al-Andalus who wrote in Arabic. His fame is based on his nuniyya entitled "رثاء الأندلس" Rithaa' ul-Andalus, a poem mourning the Catholic invasion and conquest of al-Andalus.
Pierre Seghers was a French poet and editor. During the Second World War he took part in the French Resistance movement.
Jean-Claude Renard was a French poet.
Alain Bosquet, born Anatoliy Bisk, was a French poet.
Nicole Peyrafitte is a Pyrenean-born multi-disciplinary artist living in New York City. She considers herself a "Gascorican".
The ardin is a type of harp played in Mauritania. It has a resonating body made of calabash, with 10 to 16 strings, and is played by female griots.
Colette Anna Grégoire was an Algerian poet of French origin. She married an Algerian, considered herself Algerian, and was involved in the struggle for Algeria's independence from France. Her work shows her love of the Aurès Mountains where she grew up, and her strong political beliefs.
Abdelmalek Sayad, was a sociologist, first as an assistant to Pierre Bourdieu, then as a research director at the French CNRS and at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. An expert of the North-African community in France, he was central to the introduction of the study of migration issues in French social sciences.
Michel Deguy is a French poet and translator. He taught French literature at the Universite de Paris VIII (Saint-Denis) for many years. He also served as director of the French literary journal Po&sie, and as editor of Les Temps Modernes, the literary journal founded by Jean-Paul Sartre. As a translator, he has translated Heidegger, Gongora, Sappho, Dante, and many others.
Muhammad Bin Al-Qāsim al-Qundūsi was a Sufi calligrapher and scholar who lived in Fes, Morocco.
