Mahmoud Messadi

Mahmoud Messadi (; 28 January 1911 – 16 December 2004) was a Tunisian author and intellectual who also served as Minister of Education and Minister of Culture. Also, he is a prominent Tunisian novelist.

Life and education

Messadi was born in Tazarka, Nabeul Governorate, Tunisia. His education began in the village Quranic school, where he memorized part of the Qur’an before starting primary school in Korba.

He then completed high school in the Sadiqi Institute in Tunis in 1933. In the same year, he enrolled at the Sorbonne University in Paris to study Arabic language and literature. The second was later published in Arabic and French. Among the core tenets of this plan was an expansion of primary school education. The novel tells the story of Ghaylan and his wife Maymuna, who come upon a valley full of people who worship a goddess of drought named Sahhaba. Ghaylan decides to build the people a dam, to give them a reliable source of water and cure them of their superstitions, with disastrous results. This novel is recognized for "the extreme elegance of its language," The Dam (1955/1940), translated to German in October 2007 Birth of the Oblivion (, 1945), translated to French in 1993 and to German in 2008