Biography
Malek Haddad was born on 5 July 1927 in Constantine, where he completed his primary and secondary studies. He spent a short period in teaching, then went to Aix-en-Provence in 1954 to study law. He wrote for reviews and weeklies, travelled, tried work in the Camargue and later worked in radio in Paris.
During the national struggle he carried out missions for the FLN in the USSR, Egypt and India. After independence, he returned to Constantine and directed the cultural page of An-Nasr from 1965 to 1968.
Work and context
From April 1968 to August 1972, Haddad served as director of culture at the Ministry of Information and Culture. He worked on the first national cultural colloquium, held from 31 May to 3 June 1968, and on the first Pan-African Festival in 1969. In July 1972 he became a technical adviser for studies and research in French-language cultural production.
After independence he chose to stop writing literary work in French, saying that the language separated him from his "true" readers. His novels and poems remain central to discussions of language, memory and readership in Algerian literature. He died on 2 June 1978 in Algiers.
Selected works
- Le Malheur en danger
- La Derniere Impression
- Je t'offrirai une gazelle
- L'Eleve et la lecon
- Le Quai aux fleurs ne repond plus
- Ecoute et je t'appelle