It irreverently plays with the frontiers of sentences, mixing the written and the spoken, and jumbling the order of words, to rewrite the rules of what gets written while remaining perfectly enjoyable and intelligible. The story is also striking in its language. It features a pet dog able to drink nearly a whole river, pots moving when they are called, talking spit, and neighbours making clever plans when stricken with the diarrhea (I have always enjoyed Kabyle stories’ uninhibited approach to bodily functions and fluids). The world depicted here is rooted in Kabyle/Amazigh tales and mythology. “Le Grand Zoiseau” narrates the story of a little girl who wants to marry, and, seeing her mother deny her the right, she takes matters into her own magic hands. Baya also used the title “Le grand zoiseau” for one of her paintings, pictured at right. The precious pages showcase eight rare lithographies by Baya, and, rarer still, a short story by her called “Le Grand Zoiseau,” which I translate here as “The Great Great Big Bird.” The wording is difficult to convey in English for though it means “the big bird” it is written phonetically in the way children pronounce “the bird” in French, mistaking the singular article with the plural. To publicize and celebrate the event, a leaflet in eight sheets was produced, and a few copies remain in circulation. But Baya in fact wrote at least one short tale, published in the gallery leaflet of her first exhibition in November 1947.īaya’s first exhibition was held when she was very young, sixteen years of age, at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, a gallery that still exists today. Painter and sculptor Baya Mehieddine (1931-1998), born Fatima Haddad on Decemin Bordj el Kiffan, is best remembered as a surrealist painter and self-taught artist who marked her time (and ours) with her bold-hued depictions of women and shape-shifting animals. Acclaimed painter and sculptor Baya Mehieddine also, Nadia Ghanem finds, wrote short stories:
0 kommentar(er)
