Warda al-Jazairia

Warda al-Jazairia, whose name means "the Algerian rose", was one of the great singers of the Arab world. Over 6 decades she recorded more than 300 songs. She was born on 22 July 1939 in Puteaux, near Paris, and died on 17 May 2012 in Cairo, in Egypt.

Born Warda Ftouki, the future singer had a father from Souk Ahras and a Lebanese mother. As a child she sang at the Tam-Tam, her father's cabaret in the Latin Quarter, and she made her first record at 11.

In 1958 the family had to leave France and settled in Beirut, where Warda sang for Algeria's struggle for independence. In 1960 she moved to Cairo, where she was offered a leading film role.

After independence she married an Algerian officer, Djamel Kesri, and stopped singing for about 10 years. On 5 July 1972, at the request of President Houari Boumediene, she sang in Algiers for the tenth anniversary of independence.

She then returned to Cairo and worked with the composer Baligh Hamdi, whom she married, on songs such as Khallik Hena. Other great composers wrote for her, among them Riad al-Sunbati and Mohamed Abdel Wahab.

Warda died of a heart attack, aged 72. She was buried 2 days later at El Alia cemetery in Algiers. In May 2026 the Algiers Opera marked the 14th anniversary of her death with a week of concerts and an exhibition.