Fadhma Amrouche in Baillé, Ille-et-Vilaine (35)

Fadhma Aït Mansour Amrouche (1882-1967) was born in Tizi Hibel, Algeria, and died in Saint-Brice-en-Coglès (Ille-et-Vilaine). Her mother Ayna married a much older man when she was very young and on his death she chose to live alone with her two children. The custom was for the widow to live with her mother, which her brother Kaci wanted, but she refused and Kaci severed communication with Ayna, meaning that she was unable to be present at her mother's funeral. Ayna had a relationship with another man, who refused to accept that he was the father of a child she had, and she was excluded from the community.

This third child was Fadhma, the 'illegitimate' daughter of a widow, and Ayna sent her to a mission run by Catholic nuns, where she was miserable, but passed her certificats d'études in 1892. She returned to her village and her (remarried) mother, who taught her Algerian customs, songs and Kabyle poems. She later converted to Catholicism, married a Catholic Algerian (Antoine-Belkacem Amrouche) when she was sixteen and he was eighteen, and had eight children by him. Two of these children went on to be writers, Jean (1906-1962) and Taos Amrouche (1913-1976) being noted for their radio interviews with Jean Giono.

Fadhma (now renamed Marguerite) spent most of her adult life in Tunis, where she went with her husband and children, but her heart remained in Kabylia. She passed on many berber songs and stories to Jean and Taos, and in 1930 the three began writing and translating into French this traditionally oral tradition. Fadhma began writing her own poems. Her autobiography Histoire de ma vie was published posthumously in 1968. Allée Fadhma Amrouche leads to the cemetery in Baillé, where she is buried.