Hamou Amirouche
It has been 60 years since Algeria broke free from French colonial rule. Former Algerian freedom fighter and author Hamou Amirouche will speak at Illinois State University at 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 10, in Schroeder Hall, room 242. The talk is free and open to the public.
Amirouche, who joined the armed struggle for Algeria’s independence as a teenager, is the author of Memoirs of a Mujahed: Algeria’s Struggle for Freedom, 1945-1962.
The talk, titled “The Making of an Alergian Freedom Fighter,” is sponsored by the departments of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, History, and Politics and Government, the Harold K. Sage Fund, and the Illinois State University Foundation. Amirouche’s talk is part of the President’s Speaker Series.
During the war, Amirouche served as secretary to a national hero, Colonel Amirouche Aït Hamouda in 1957-1958. In March 1958, the colonel appointed him to be a member of a commando that routed mail and funds to Tunisia.
While in Tunis, the author was ordered to return to school. After obtaining a degree, he was sent to the United States where he earned a bachelor’s degree in government at Wesleyan University (Connecticut) and a master’s degree in political sciences at the University of Colorado. In 1967, he began his professional career at the Algerian Ministry of Industry and Energy and at the Institute of Global and Strategic Studies.
In 1994, he settled in the United States with his family and began a new career as researcher and university lecturer. Amirouche is the author of numerous scholarly articles published in both French and English.
Memoirs of a Mujahed: Algeria’s Struggle for Freedom, 1945-1962 was originally published in French in 2009 as Akfadou, Un An avec le Colonel Amirouche.
The President’s Speaker Series seeks to bring innovative and enlightening speakers to the campus with the aim of providing the community with a platform to foster dialogue, cultivate enriching ideas, and continue an appreciation of learning as an active and lifelong process. All talks are free and open to the public.
See more speakers at the President’s Speaker Series website.
