Djamel Amrani

Djamel Amrani was born on August 19, 1935 in Sour El Ghozlane. Coming from a modest family of nine children of which he was the youngest. From a father working as a P and T receiver and a mother who had never been to school. Following their father through itinerant missions, the Amrani family stayed in several locations, notably in Cherchell, before settling permanently in 1952 in Algiers. The young Djamel will attend the municipal school of Bir Mourad Raïs there. And it is by wearing out his pants on school benches that he will make a literally literary and capital discovery in his life. The Death of the Wolf, by Alfred de Vigny, and The Loves of Chopin, by George Sand, which he knew by heart, inspired his first poetically candid drafts. A passion was blossoming. “I was already a poet basically. I was making music. I was at the Algiers conservatory, I played the piano at 15. I was the only Algerian to have competed with Chopin’s 5th study, Gabriel Foret’s 7th Nocturne and then La Pas...