Marie-Louise-Taos Amrouche was an Algerian writer and singer.
Background
She was born to a family of Kabyle Roman Catholic converts, the only daughter in a family of six sons. Her mother Fadhma Aït Mansour, who was a famous Kabyle singer, had a great impact on her life, and her literary style would reflect the oral traditions of the Kabylie Berber people of her mother"s heritage.
Career
In 1947, she became the first Algerian woman to publish a novel. Her family had moved to Tunisia to escape persecution after their conversion. Amrouche received her elementary and secondary education in Tunis, and in 1935 went to France for studies at the École Normale at Sèvres.
In 1939, at the Congrès de Chant de Fès, she received a scholarship to study at the Casa Velasquez in Spain, where she researched the ties between Berber and Spanish popular songs.
Her autobiographical first novel, Jacinthe noir, was published in 1947 andis one of the earliest ever published in French by a North African woman writer With her compilation of tales and poems Louisiana Grain magique in 1966, she took the nom de plume Marguerite-Taos, Marguerite being her mother"s Christian name.
While she wrote in French, she sang in Kabyle. She recorded several other albums, including Chants sauvés de l’oubli (“Songs Saved from Oblivion”), Hommage au chant profond (“Homage to a Profound Song”),, and
She was an activist in Berber issues and was among the founders of Académie berbère in 1966.
She died in Saint-Michel-l"Observatoire in France.