Biyuna

Biyuna — Biography

Baya Bouzar came into the world on 13 September 1952 in Algiers' Belcourt district; performing as Biyuna, she began singing with wedding bands as a teenager before fronting her own group and later appearing in the city's cabarets. In 1973 director Mustapha Badie cast her as Fatma in La Grande Maison, a soap opera drawn from a Mohamed Dib novel, the role that made her name. She appeared in the films Leila and the Others and The Neighbor, then played Meriem in Nadir Moknèche's Madame Osmane's Harem in 1999. Between 2002 and 2005 she gained wide popularity through the Ramadan-themed trilogy Nass Mlah City, and in 2007 she played the lead, a mafia boss called Madame Aldjeria, in Délice Paloma. She also performed opposite Jane Birkin in a staging of Sophocles' Elektra in 2006, appeared in La Celestina in Paris in 2009, and starred in the Nessma TV sitcom Nsibti Laaziza in 2010. As a recording artist she released the album Raid Zone with composer John Bagnolett in 2001, followed by Blonde dans la Casbah. She was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in November 2012, was married with four children, and died in Béni Messous on 25 November 2025, aged 73.