Yacine, Kateb

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Kateb Yacine (kä´tāb yä´sēn), 1929–89, Algerian author. In 1945 he moved to Paris and afterward traveled in Europe and Asia. His most famous work is the novel Nedjma (1957, tr. 1961, new tr. 1991), a symbolic story of the love of four men for one woman. The work is notable for its carefully constructed, multilevel plot. His other books include a volume of poetry, Soliloquies (1946); the novel La Polygone Étoile (1966); and two anthologies of plays, Le cercle des représailles (1959) and L'Homme aux sandales de caoutchouc (1970).

See studies by I. C. Tcheho (1980), B. Aresu (1993), and K. Salhi (1999).