Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, "who explored the lives of Muslim women in her fiction for more than 50 years," died February 7, the Guardian reported. She was 78. Djebar was born Fatima-Zohra Imalayan, but adopted the pen-name Assia Djebar after publication of her first novel, La Soif, in 1957.
In a statement, Seven Stories Press, which published English translations of Djebar's Algerian White, So Vast the Prison and The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry, said: "It is with extreme sadness that we mourn the great Assia Djebar, who passed away this week. Her novels and poems boldly face the challenges and struggles she knew as a feminist living under patriarchy and an intellectual living under colonialism and its aftermath. Djebar's writing, marked by a regal unwillingness to compromise in the face of ethical, linguistic, and narrative complexities, has attracted devoted followers around the world."
