From this ordeal came his moving autobiographical narrative Le Témoin (The Witness), published in 1960 by Les Éditions de Minuit. He was a career diplomat and journalist before he decided to devote himself to writing and to his radio broadcasts, which drew a wide audience with such shows as “Uninterrupted Poetry.” He received the Pablo Neruda medal in 2004 for his body of work, published between 1964 and 2003. His books include Soleil de notre nuit (Sun of Our Night, 1964), L’été de ta peau (The Summer of Your Skin, 1982), and La nuit du dedans (The Night Within, 2003). He died in Algiers in 2005.