Nabile Farès

Who is Nabile Farès?

Nabile Farès was born in 1940 in Collo, Algeria, the son of Abdur Rahman Farès. Nabile's reputation as a writer has outstripped that of his father; he now lives and writes in Paris, France.

Nabile Farès fought against the French towards the end of the war of independence. Later he obtained his doctorate, in France, with a dissertation on the role of the Ogre in North African oral literature.

His first work is the novel Yahia, pas de chance, which evolved from a manuscript Farès carried in a knapsack while on the run in several periods during and after the war of independence Later works were both novels and poetry. Among these is the trilogy of novels: La Découverte du nouveau monde, and his greatest novel Un Passager de l'occident, which arises, in part, from Farès's friendship with the American writer James Baldwin.

All of Farès's work is characterized by political engagement, and particularly by a drive to expand the definition of Algeria and Algerianness—and to resist factional politics and identity politics. He evokes an Algeria that is always a work in progress, and leaves the reader to reflect that personal identity is much the same. Exil is a constant theme. His poetry, in particular, is challenging and marked by visually striking inventiveness.