ALBERT MEMMI

Born in Tunisia into a poor Jewish family, the 98 year-old writer and sociologist Albert Memmi is a giant of Sephardi literature of French expression. His works include The Pillar of Salt, The Scorpion, Portrait of the Colonized, and numerous seminal sociological works. Memmi situated his work early on at the crossroads of Jewish, Arab, and French cultures. Seen as a “Prophet of Decolonization,” he strove toward a recognition of multiple identities, the fight against all forms of racism, and wrote about the difficulty of finding a balance between East and West. Recognized by peers, including Albert Camus, Aragon, Jean-Paul Sartre,  and Léopold Sedar Senghor, his work is often read in conjunction with those of Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. Due to Memmi’s advanced age, an award ceremony was organized at his home in Paris with authors Colette Fellous and Guy Dugas, coordinator of the upcoming Memmi Centennial in France and Tunisia. Upon hearing the news of the Pomegranate Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Ambassador of Tunisia at Paris, His Excellency Abdelazziz Rassâa, paid a visit to Memmi to recognize the bestowing of the Award to a fellow Tunisian native. The video of this occasion will be screened during the Opening Night of the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, on 6 March 2019.