Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Hans HedbergSwedish Artist

Swedish artist Hans Hedberg, 89, known for his oversize fruit and egg ceramic sculptures, died March 27 of a kidney illness at a hospital in Cannes, France.

Mr. Hedberg, who lived in the southeastern French town of Biot, was born in a small town 330 miles north of Stockholm. He studied painting and ceramics in Denmark, Paris and Italy before settling in France in the 1950s.

His work has been displayed in museums and private and public collections around the world. Some of his famous sculptures are housed in the Hans Hedberg Museum near his birthplace.

Driss Chraibi, 80, a French-based Moroccan novelist who wrote about Islam, colonialism and the treatment of women in his homeland, died April 1 in southwest France. No cause of death was reported.

Mr. Chraibi was born in 1926 in El Jadida, near Casablanca on Morocco's Atlantic coast. He moved to Paris in 1945 to study chemistry and wrote in French, his adopted tongue.

Mr. Chraibi was a chemical engineer, night watchman and laborer before his literary career began in 1954 with the publication of "Le Passé Simple," an autobiographical novel attacking Islam and the treatment of women in Morocco's taboo-laden society. He went on to write 18 more novels, most dealing with colonialism and his memories of Morocco.

"He was the first writer I read as a child who created Moroccan characters that were believable," said Laila Lalami, whose "Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits" chronicles Moroccans' attempts to make the dangerous sea crossing to Spain in search of work.