Hamid Ski
Hamid Skif , actually Mohamed Benmebkhout (born March 21, 1951 in Oran ; † March 18, 2011 in Hamburg , Germany ) was an Algerian writer and journalist who wrote his texts in French and lived in German exile .
Life
At the age of 20, he published his first book in Algeria in 1971 , a volume of poetry , with a print run of 25,000. A volume of short stories, Das Haus des Schweigens , could not be published until 1986 because of problems with censorship . He worked in Algeria in the 1970s and 80s for the state press agency Algérie Presse Service and from the early 1990s as a freelance journalist. When numerous Algerian intellectuals, including Tahar Djaout and Youcef Sebti, were murdered during the civil war in 1993/94 , Hamid Skif left the country with his family and went into exile in Germany.
In 1995/96 Hamid Skif was a scholarship holder in the Heinrich-Böll-Haus . From 1997 to 1999 he was a guest of the Hamburg Foundation for the Politically Persecuted and from July 1999 to December 2005, also in Hamburg, he was a scholarship holder of the Writers-in-Exile-Program of the German PEN Center . He died shortly before his 60th birthday after a serious illness.
Quotes
- I left Algeria, but Algeria never left me. Algeria inhabits me wherever I live. After all, I didn't come here until I was 46.
- I stand by my role as a witness, not only to my society, but to all people in general. I'm not just a witness for Algeria. I'm concerned with human issues. Serious writing means credibly getting to the bottom of what is one's own and looking for the best or the worst there. If you really want to be a witness, then only by tracing your own truth, not the truth of others. Nobody cares.
- The politicians, the posters, the parties are there for political discourse. The role of the writer is to descend deeply [sic] and thus to go towards the others [sic].
Works (selection)
- Drums against the dream thieves. In: Internationales Authors Colloquium Art + Freedom - Literature + Dictatorship Jena 1997.
- La princesse et le clown. Éds. 00h00, Zéro Heure, Paris 2003.
- Monsieur le président. German: Dear Mr. President! Edition Cologne, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-936791-00-7 .
- Whore with a tie. Stories from Algeria. Edition Cologne, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-936791-06-6 .
- Early exiles. Poems; french / german . Manutius-Verl., Heidelberg 2005, ISBN 3-934877-46-X .
- La geographie du danger . (Novel) Naïve, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-35021-033-2 . German: geography of fear . Nautilus, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-89401-548-0 .
Awards (selection)
- 2007 Prix de l'association des écrivains de langue française for La geographie du danger
- 2005 Hilde Domin Prize for Literature in Exile of the City of Heidelberg for his letter novel Dear Mr. President .
See also
Web links
- Literature by and about Hamid Skif in the catalog of the German National Library
- Hamid Skif: Freedom of the press in the Arab world: Boundless farce, on: de.qantara.de
Individual references, sources
- ↑ a b daily newspaper "Le Watan" from January 25, 2007: Interview with Hamid Skif (French)
- ↑ Hamid Ski obituary
- ↑ www.marabout.de: Hamdi Skif
- ↑ www.hamburger-stiftung.de: Foundation guests
- ↑ www.pen-deutschland.de ( Memento of the original from June 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hamid Ski obituary
- ↑ All original quotes from dradio.de (from November 22, 2005)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ski, Hamid |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Benmebkhout, Mohamed (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Algerian writer and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 21, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oran |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 18, 2011 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |