Tlemcen or Places of Writing

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Translated from the French by Guy Bennett. TLEMCEN OR PLACES OF WRITING is an unusual, hybrid work: part memoir of the author's coming of age and coming to writing in his native Algeria, and part meditation on the nature of writing itself as well as on the task and responsibility of the writer. The text is complimented by some fifty photographs taken by the author in the Tlemcen of his youth, images of a past that has vanished and which the text seeks to reveal. The original French edition of this work was awarded the Grand prix de la Francophonie de l'Academie francaise on its publication in 1994.