Louisette Ighilahriz
Louisette Ighilahriz (born 22 August 1936) is an Algerian writer, former Conseil de la Nation member, and a former member of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) who came to widespread attention in 2000 with her story of captivity by the French from 1957 to 1962, becoming, in the words of the American journalist Adam Shatz, "a catalyst of a debate about the legacy of the French-Algerian war". Childhood and early life Ighilahriz was born in Oujda to a Berber family and her family moved to Algiers in 1948. Though she was born in Morocco, the Ighilahriz family originated from the Kabylie region of Algeria, whose Berber tribes had been some of the fiercest opponents of French rule in Algeria. Ighilahriz "describes herself as coming from a whole family of nationalists," calling her mother "illiterate but hyperpoliticised" and saying that her maternal grandfather clandestinely manufactured guns for "revolutionaries." When hearing about the beginning of the Algerian War on 1 November 1954, her father, who worked as a baker, told her: "It is the end of the humiliation". FLN involvement Revolutionary work and capture Strongly anti-French, Ighilahriz joined the FLN under the codename Lila in late 1956 to work as a