Algiers, Third World Capital

Elaine Mokhtefi was born in New York. After the Second World War, she joined the youth movement for world peace and justice, becoming director of a militant student organization. In 1951 she settled in France as a translator and interpreter for international organizations in the new postwar world. In 1960, she joined a small team in New York as part of the Algerian National Liberation Front, lobbying the United Nations in support of the government in exile and working for Algerian independence. When the struggle was won, she made Algeria her home, working as a journalist and translator. She married the Algerian writer and liberation war veteran Mokhtar Mokhtefi, who died in 2015. A painter as well as a writer, she lives in New York.

A fascinating portrait of life with the Black Panthers in Algiers: a story of liberation and radical politics

Following the Algerian war for independence and the defeat of France in 1962, Algiers became the liberation capital of the Third World. Here, Elaine Mokhtefi, a young American woman who had become involved in the struggle and worked with leaders of the Algerian Revolution, including Frantz Fanon, found a home. As journalist and translator, she lived among guerillas, revolutionaries, exiles and visionaries, was even present in the groundbreaking The Battle of Algiers.

Mokhtefi crossed paths with some of the era's brightest stars: Stokely Carmichael, Timothy Leary, Ahmed Ben Bella, Jomo Kenyatta and the Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver. She was instrumental in the establishment of the International Section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers and was close at hand as the group became involved in intrigue, murder and international hijackings. She traveled for and with the Panthers; she organized Cleaver's clandestine departure for France. Algiers is an unforgettable story of an era of passion and promise.