Tahar Ouettar

Tahar Ouettar (Arabic: الطاهر وطار‎; 1936 – August 12, 2010) was an Algerian writer. Ouettar was called "one of the North African nation’s most prolific Arabic language authors".

Born into a Berber family in Sedrata, he was a supporter of arabization in the wake of Algerian independence. The essence of his project, he once said, was to “liberate Algerian identity to make it Arab-Berber-Islamic.” He denounced Algeria's French-language writers as "vestiges of colonialism". Ouettar published his first novel "Al Laz" in 1974.[1] While steadfast in his assault on francophone writers, he defended the use of the Berber language.