Maghreb-Orient Express

John Achkar, Zineb Mekouar, Flèche Love, Alice Kaplan

As a young orphan, Baya adored drawing dresses inspired by the magazines she found on the Algerian farm where she worked with her grandmother. In November 1947, on the eve of her 16th birthday, she attended the inauguration of her first exhibition in Paris, in the company of some of the greatest intellectuals and artists of the time. Amongst them was Albert Camus, who saw in her "a princess amongst barbarians". In "Seeing Baya: Portrait of an Algerian Artist in Paris" by Alice Kaplan, (now translated into French by Patrick Hersant under the title "Baya ou le Grand Vernissage" and published by Le Bruit du Monde in France and by Barzakh in Algeria) the author reveals the story behind this exceptional destiny.

In recent weeks, touring with his new show "Chou Zake!", he has visited Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, Turkey and Germany. The humorist John Achkar is now on stage at the Apollo Theatre, Paris, on 3 and 4 May, before travelling to Madrid, Barcelona, Bucharest, Toulouse, Montpellier, Marseille, Brussels, Lausanne and Geneva.

Anir is 10 years old. He loves the eagles sweeping in large circles near the clouds and the stories his grandfather tells him, especially those concerning the Rucher du Saint, the oldest collective apiary in the world, perched on a mountainside in the High Atlas. Behind the local village legends and his mother's haunting lullaby lies a dark family secret. "Souviens-toi des Abeilles", (Remember the Bees), Zineb Mekouar's second novel, has been published by Gallimard as part of its Collection Blanche.

"Time becomes so long. I have lived thousands of lives." Flèche Love could not have found a better way to describe her existence than in "Amour Quantique" (Quantum Love), from her album "Guérison" (Cure), released by Horizon Musiques. The artist reconnects as much with herself and with her roots through the soundtrack of her childhood in Geneva, marked by her mother's Amazigh culture.

#Report from Tangiers, to coincide with International Jazz Day. #Atmosphere with the guests' cultural favourites.

Guests: Alice Kaplan, writer and historian, lecturer in French literature at Yale University (by video link from the USA); John Achkar, humorist; Zineb Mekouar, novelist; Flèche Love, singer-songwriter.

Presented by: Mohamed Kaci.
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