Born in a remote fortress village in a region of Algeria known as Kabylia, Djura began her existence on the edge between life and death. Had she been born a boy, her birth would have been heralded by rifle shots and yu-yus. Instead, Djura’s mother, devestated over the birth of a daughter, refused to celebrate or feed the baby girl. Djura was saved by one of her grandfather’s wives, who miraculously was able to nurse her. Djura thrived under the care of her grandmother, who raised her until she was five.

The Kabylia people are Berbers who speak a language of their own (one which is quite different than Arabic) and have a fierce pride in their identity. This strong code of honor, along with a traditional patriarchal “protection” of women, often leads to curses, vendettas and violent deaths, even within families. Djura’s independent nature and passion led her to rebel against her family and the traditional role of a Berber woman, and it is this struggle for personal freedom that forms the subject matter of many of her songs.

Djura’s father left for France in the early 1950’s, after his fields were unable to provide for his family. At the time the French government was encouraging the immigration of North Africans in order to use them as cheap labor. Djura’s family lived in the poor district of Paris called Belleville. The family expanded by one baby per year (nine children in all) until Djura’s father was imprisoned for supporting Algeria’s National Liberation Front.

During her father’s imprisonment, Djura helped raise her seven younger siblings and accompanied her illiterate mother in constant dealings with local authorities to obtain child benefits. After Algerian independence was won in 1962, Djura’s father was released from jail. Once at home he became increasingly volatile, beating his wife and his eldest daughter mercilessly. Djura was also beaten by her eldest brother, Mohand. Despite the violence at home, Djura excelled in school and her outstanding singing voice gained her solo parts in the school choir. When her rebellious nature caused her to be expelled from high school, she enrolled at a performing arts school. At sixteen she was offered a main role in a TV series but her father forbade it, declaring adamantly, “My daughter shall never go on stage!”

To escape an impending arranged marriage, Djura fled Paris for Algiers, accompanied by her brother, Mohand, and her sister-in-law, hoping for independence. Once in Algiers, Mohand beat her and prohibited her from accepting positions as an announcer and journalist with the Algerian radio and television stations. He controlled all of her actions, including the way she dressed. When he suspected she was becoming too intimate with his friend Olivier, a French architect, he imprisoned her in a room in the poor district for five months, her only consolation being two records, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto, and the songs and poems she herself began to compose.

When Djura’s father arrived in Algeria from Paris, he moved her from the capital to their native village, Ifigha. This experience proved invaluable for Djura, who reacquainted herself with the Berber language and learned the songs of the village women. She witnessed the strength of these women - in the abuse they endured through the patriarchal structure of Berber society and in their struggle to survive in a country suffering immeasurably from years of colonial rule and a hard-won independence.

After a few months Djura and her father returned to Paris where he imprisoned her on the thirteenth floor of a council tower block. She escaped with Olivier, pursued by her father’s threat to kill her. But Djura refused to be controlled by the fear of her father. She worked during the day to support her mother and siblings and to pay for film school night classes. Also from her earnings, she rented a flat for her mother, whom she finally persuaded to leave her increasingly violent and alcoholic husband.

Djura’s brother, Mohand, caught up with Djura and Olivier in Algeria, where they were making a documentary on architecture, and attacked Djura with a knife, badly slashing her lips. Although she escaped with her life, she was pursued by Mohand’s threat: “Wherever you are, even in ten years, I will find you and kill you.”

Djura made a second, widely-acclaimed film with Olivier, Ali in Wonderland, on the life of Algerian immigrants in Paris. During the search for suitable music for her films, Djura met a young impresario who read the poems she composed during her imprisonment in Algiers and persuaded her to sing them in public. She formed the group Djur Djura (named after Mount Djurdjura near her childhood home) in 1977, first with two of her sisters and later with other young Berber singers, accompanied by musicians from North Africa, America and France.

Djur Djura’s success was won in the face of bitter opposition by Djura’s family. In 1987 she and her impresario-partner were victims of a savage attack by her youngest brother and her niece, who had been sent to punish Djura for refusing to live as a traditional Berber woman. Djura, who was pregnant at the time of the attack, nearly lost the child, but survived to continue to sing of the hardships of Algerian women and their sisters throughout the world.

Djura dedicates her songs to “All women who have been deprived of love, knowledge and freedom.”

Dorothy S. Blair, 1993