Fadhma Aït Mansour

Marguerite - Fadhma Aït Mansour Amrouche (* 1882 in Tizi Hibel, Algeria, † July 9, 1967 in Saint -Brice -en- Coglès, France) was an Algerian singer and mother of the writer Jean Amrouche and Taos Amrouche.

Mansour was born around 1882 in a Berber village as the illegitimate daughter of a widow. Strongly discriminated against by their surroundings, she left her village to study at a secular school. Later, in the time when she was with her sisters in Aït Manguellet hospice, she converted to Roman Catholic Christianity. Her husband, whom she married in 1898, Antoine- Belkacem Amrouche, was equally as a convert to Catholicism Berber. Together the couple had eight children, but only two of them survived beyond the death of their parents. Before the birth of her first child Taos, the family moved to Tunis and then to France.

The folk songs of the famous singer in 1939 translated into French by her son Jean, entitled Chants berbères de Kabylie. In 1967, Tao brought out a music album in the Kabyle dialect, which was based on the records of his brother.

Her autobiography De ma vie was published posthumously in 1968. This book deals with the life she lived as a woman between two worlds: On the one hand the life and language of their Berber homeland, on the other hand, the colonial power France, its language and religion, Christianity.

• Singer
• Musician (Algeria)
• Algerian
• Woman
• Born in 1882
• Died in 1967