He supplemented his novels' prefaces with artwork from his painter friends Baya, Abdallah Benanteur, Mohammed Khadda and Jean de Maisonseul.

Pélégri also assisted on the film adaptation of his novel Les Oliviers de la justice as screenwriter, dialogue writer and actor.

"Jean Pélégri, Algerian by birth and one of the great writers of our time, greater than Albert Camus in any case, remains unknown in France.

No one so naturally felt like a son of Algeria in all her forms: Arab, Berber, Spanish, French ... as Jean Pélégri did, not Gabriel Audisio, not Emmanuel Roblès, not Jules Roy, nor Albert Camus.

From his novel Oliviers de la justice to Maboul, Pélégri sings a veritable 'cante jondo' of rural Algeria in all of its baroque complexity.