Jean Amrouche

{{Short description|Algerian francophone writer, poet and journalist}} {{Infobox person | name = Jean Amrouche | image = Jean Amrouche.png | birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|2|7}} | birth_place = Ighil Ali, Petite Kabylie | death_date = {{Death date and age|1962|4|16|1906|2|7}} | death_place = Paris, France | mother = Fadhma Aït Mansour | relatives = Taos Amrouche (sister) }}

'''Jean el Mouhoub Amrouche''' (7 February 1906 in Ighil Ali, Algeria – 16 April 1962 in Paris, France) was an Algerian francophone writer, poet and journalist.<ref name="Gikandi 2003">{{cite book | last = Gikandi | first = Simon | authorlink = Simon Gikandi | title = Encyclopedia of African Literature | publisher = Taylor & Francis | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-1-134-58223-5 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hKmCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 | access-date = 2018-11-24 | pages = 29–31 }}</ref>

== Biography == Jean el Mouhoub Amrouche was born February 7, 1906, in Ighil Ali, in the valley of Soumman, in petite Kabylie to a Kabyle family that had converted to Roman Catholicism.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Amrouche |title=Jean Amrouche |date=13 April 2023 |publisher=Britannica}}</ref><ref name=":0">Shatz, Adam (2024). ''The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 182. {{ISBN|978-0374720001}}.</ref> Amrouche emigrated with his family to Tunisia while still young. He was the older brother of fellow writer Taos Amrouche. Both were the children of Fadhma Aït Mansour, author of ''History of My Life''.<ref name="EB2485" />

Jean had his secondary education at Alaoui College and then left for the ''Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint-Cloud''. <ref name="EB2485" />

He taught French literature.<ref name=":0" />

The poet Armand Guibert made him known in Tunisia by publishing his two collections of poems, ''Cendres'' (poems 1928–1934) in 1934 and ''Étoile secrète'' in 1937. He wrote at that time (poems, literary criticism) in Tunisian journals and gave lectures at the ''Cercle de l'Essor'' in Tunis.<ref name="EB2485" /> Some of his writing focused on his multifaceted cultural identity, using his first and middle names as symbols of the different aspects of his identity.<ref name=":0" />

For several years with his friend Armand Guibert, he visited many countries in Europe.

He was strongly in favor of the Algerian independence movement.<ref name=":0" />

In 1943, he joined the Ministry of Information in Algiers, then the Radiodiffusion Française.<ref name="EB2485">{{Cite encyclopedia | year = 1986 | title = Amrouche | encyclopedia = Encyclopédie berbère | publisher = Edisud | url = https://journals.openedition.org/encyclopedieberbere/2485 | last = Déjeux | first = Jean | publication-place = Aix-en-Provence | volume = 4 | issue = 4 | pages = 608–613 | doi = 10.4000/encyclopedieberbere.2485 | editor1-last = Déjeux | editor1-first = Jean | editor2-last = Pantuček | editor2-first = S. | doi-access= free }}</ref>

He died on 16 April 1962 at his home in Paris; he is buried in Sargé-sur-Braye in Loir-et-Cher.<ref name="EB2485" />

== Selected works == * ''Chants Berbères de Kabylie'', 1939 * ''Etoile Secrète'', 1937 * ''Cendres : poèmes, 1928–1934'', 1934

== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20141111213519/http://www.limag.refer.org/Textes/Manuref/AMROUCHE.htm Information in French]

== References == {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amrouche, Jean}} Category:1906 births Category:1962 deaths Category:People from Ighil Ali Category:Kabyle people Category:Berber Christians Category:Algerian Roman Catholics Category:French-language poets Category:French Roman Catholics Category:French people of Kabyle descent Category:Algerian male poets Category:20th-century Algerian poets Category:Berber poets Category:20th-century Algerian male writers Category:Emigrants from French Algeria to France