Novelist and staunch defender of women’s rights Assia Djebar has died in a Paris hospital at the age of 78.<br /><br /> In 2005, the Algerian was elected to the Académie française, an elite institution devoted to matters concerning the French language. Its members are known as ‘Immortals’.<br /><br /> She will be buried in her native coastal town of Cherchell, west of Algiers.
