Assia Djebar dies, aged 78

Novelist and staunch defender of women’s rights Assia Djebar has died in a Paris hospital at the age of 78.

In 2005, the Algerian was elected to the Académie française, an elite institution devoted to matters concerning the French language. Its members are known as ‘Immortals’.

She will be buried in her native coastal town of Cherchell, west of Algiers.