Sophie Bessis

Sophie Bessis is a Tunisian-born French historian, journalist, researcher, and feminist author. She has written numerous works in French, Spanish, and English on development in the Maghreb and the Arab world, as well as on the situation of women and sociocultural inequalities to which they are subjected. She is the recipient of the Paris Liège literary prize and was honored in Tunisia as Commandeur of the Order of the Republic.

A history scholar and former editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Jeune Afrique, Bessis has worked as research associate at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris and Deputy Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights Leagues (FIDH). She has taught political economy of development at the Department of Political Science at the Sorbonne university and the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). Further, she has been a consultant for UNESCO and UNICEF and has carried out numerous missions in Africa.

Biography Bessis was born in Tunis in 1947. Her family was part of the Jewish upper middle class. She is the daughter of Juliette Bessis, a historian, professor, and researcher who specialized in the Maghreb and was a Communist militant; and Aldo Bessis, a trade unionist member of the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Tunisie and an expert for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Bessis moved to France in 1975, where she studied history and worked as a journalist. She worked as the former editor of the weekly Jeune Afrique. She has been professor of political economy of development in the department of political science at the Sorbonne and INALCO. As a consultant for UNESCO and UNICEF, she participated in numerous missions in Africa. She is the director of research at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) of Paris and deputy general secretary of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

Bessis is the author of numerous works including a biography of Habib Bourguiba, written with Souhayr Belhassen. In 2007, she published Les Arabes, les femmes, la liberté ("The Arabs, the women, the freedom") which reviewed the legacy of the Egyptian reformers of the early twentieth century and of Bourguiba, who enacted in 1956 a law that gave rights to Tunisian women. Further, she analyzed the changes in Arab societies and the shortcomings of modernization connected with the rise of Islamists and the return to an identity based solely on religious norms. In particular, Bessis denounced what she called the "identity imprisonment" to which women are subjected in the Arab world.

In 2017, she published Les Valeureuses ou Cinq Tunisiennes dans l’Histoire, in which she recounted the biography of important women in Tunisian history. These women are Elissa, the founding Phoenician princess of Carthage (also known as Dido/Didon); the singer and Jewish actress Habiba Msika, who in the 1920s became Tunisia's most popular artist; Aïcha Sayida Manoubia, the "free saint" of the thirteenth century recognized by the Sufi tradition; Aziza Othmana, a legendary Tunisian-Ottoman princess of the seventeenth century; and the feminist Habiba Menchari, whose conference in January 1929 against the use of the Islamic veil shocked Habib Bourguiba.

Awards 2015, Paris Liège literary prize for La Double impasse : l'universel à l'épreuve des fondamentalismes religieux et marchand. 2016, Commandeur de l’Ordre de la République of Tunisia

Selected works

In French L’Arme alimentaire, Paris, Maspero, 1979 La Dernière Frontière : les tiers-mondes et la tentation de l'Occident, Paris, Jean-Claude Lattès, 1983 (notice BnF no FRBNF34725538) Femmes du Maghreb l'enjeu, Paris, Jean-Claude Lattès, 1983 Habib Bourguiba : biographie en deux volumes, Paris, Jeune Afrique, 1988 ; réed. Elyzad, Tunis, 20124 Mille et une bouches, Paris, Autrement, 1995 L’Occident et les Autres : histoire d’une suprématie, Paris, La Découverte, 2003 Les Arabes, les femmes, la liberté, Paris, Albin Michel, 2007 Dedans, dehors, Tunis, Elyzad, 2010 La Double impasse : l'universel à l'épreuve des fondamentalismes religieux et marchand, Paris, La Découverte, coll. " Cahiers libres ", 2014 Les Valeureuses : cinq Tunisiennes dans l'histoire, Tunis, Elyzad, 2017 La civilisation judéo-chrétienne : anatomie d'une imposture, Paris, Les Liens qui libèrent, 2025

In Spanish Mujeres del Magreb, lo que está en juego (1994) Editorial Horas y horas El hambre en el mundo (1994) Occidente y los otros: historia de una supremacía. (2002) Alianza Editorial Las emergencias del mundo: economía, poder alteridad (2005) Nobel Los árabes, las mujeres, la libertad (2007) Alianza Editorial Mujer y familia en las sociedades árabes actuales. (2010) Editorial Bellaterra

In English Equal inheritance for daughters is key to Tunisian women's empowerment Western Supremacy: The Triumph of an Idea Zed Books, 2003