Revolutionary Memoirs: Assia Djebar and Latifa al-Zayyat

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tahia Abdel Nasser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Women Writers ◽  
Assia Djebar ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Arab Women ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
National Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Nation

This chapter focuses on the autobiographical novels and memoirs of two important twentieth-century Arab women writers who provide models for the adaptation of the genre in colonial and postcolonial cultures: Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade and Nowhere in My Father’s House, two Francophone autobiographical novels by Algerian writer Assia Djebar, and The Search: Personal Papers, a memoir in Arabic by Egyptian writer Latifa al-Zayyat. By framing autobiographical production in anticolonial national movements, Djebar and al-Zayyat rework the genre to comment on postcolonial cultures. Both writers contest colonial formations and offer revolutionary representations of solitude in the postcolonial nation: the Francophone Algerian writer’s challenge to the French archive of the Algerian War of Independence and the Egyptian writer’s reexamination of national culture and the history of the 1940s student movement. In the chapter, solitude is read as an emancipatory opportunity when the writers rethink the language of the new nation through autobiography.

Lecture empathique et trauma de la guerre d’Algérie chez Assia Djebar, Boualem Sansal et Leila Sebbar

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-74
Author(s):  
Kirsten Husung
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
The Other ◽  
Assia Djebar ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Leila Sebbar ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Imaginative Resistance ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Moral Convictions

This article analyses the narrative processes and literary strategies that seek to engender the reader’s empathy for the main characters in three Francophone texts that depict the trauma of the Algerian War of independence. Each text starts from a real event by intertwining historical facts and the present with fiction, allowing for a better understanding of the postcolonial situation. These expectations are reinforced by Djebar’s and Sansal’s paratexts. Drawing on the theories of Suzanne Keen and Fritz Breithaupt empathy can especially be favoured by internal focalization, the characters’ empathic interpersonal relationships as well as polyphony. The imaginative construction of the other is emphasized as necessary, while the detailed description of historical facts may rather provoke feelings of pity. A fortiori, empathy can decline or be blocked in the passages, which go against the moral convictions of the reader. This imaginative resistance is due to the fact that these passages concern reality and not fiction

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: The Algerian War of Independence in Retrospect

1994 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Brett
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
National Society ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
North African ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
History Of ◽  
African Writers ◽  
High Level

The English-language literature on Algeria generated by the Algerian war of independence and continuing down to the present forms an intellectual as well as linguistic tradition apart from the much more voluminous literature in French. Despite the involvement of French and North African writers who have published in English, it is largely the creation of outsiders looking at the country from British and North American points of view, according to current fashions. The war of independence remains central to its concerns as the great transformer of a colonial into a national society, however that transformation is to be understood. The qualified approval of the nationalist cause by Alistair Horne contrasts sharply with Elie Kedourie's denunciation. Most judgements have been based on the outcome, the political, social and economic performance of the regime, considered as good or bad. Since the death of Boumedienne in 1978, they have tended to be unfavourable. Their largely secular analyses, however, have been called in question since 1988 by the rise of political Islam, which has called for a reappraisal of the whole subject of the war and its consequences. Such a reappraisal is still in the future. Meanwhile Ernest Gellner, in dispute with Edward Said over the question of Orientalism, has raised the matter of the role of Islam in the history of Algeria to a high level of generalization, at which the war itself may, paradoxically, return to the forefront of international scholarly concern.

“HUMANIZE THE CONFLICT”: ALGERIAN HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS AND PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGNS, 1954–62

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Johnson Onyedum
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Local Support ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Health And Healing

AbstractThis article explores the vitally important yet often neglected role of medicine and health care in the conduct of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). Using French, Swiss, and recently opened Algerian archival materials, it demonstrates how Algerian nationalists developed a health-service infrastructure that targeted the domestic and international arenas. It argues that they employed the powerful language of health and healing to legitimize their claims for national sovereignty and used medical organizations to win local support, obtain financial and material aid from abroad, and recast themselves as humanitarians to an increasingly sympathetic international audience. This research aims to situate Algerian efforts into a broader history of decolonization and humanitarianism and contributes to rethinking the process through which political claims were made at the end of empire.

Rivesaltes

2020 ◽  
pp. 227-235
Author(s):  
Susan Ireland
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
World War ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Memorial Museum ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Failure To Protect

The Camp Joffre, otherwise known as the Camp de Rivesaltes, played a role in many of the major conflicts of the twentieth century, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Algerian war of independence. Originally designed as a military base, the camp was frequently reconfigured and was used for diverse purposes, often serving as an internment centre. The memorial museum, which was opened in October 2015, bears witness to the camp’s multifaceted history. As a postcolonial site of memory, Rivesaltes is primarily associated with the harkis, the Algerians who worked for the French during the war of independence and who found themselves isolated in temporary housing camps when they were repatriated to France at the end of the conflict. Emblematic of the housing camps in general, Rivesaltes figures prominently in the community’s collective memories as a symbol of their marginalization and of France’s failure to protect them.

Memories of a French Migration Crisis

2018 ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Laura Jeanne Sims
Keyword(s):  
Algerian War ◽  
African Origin ◽  
North African ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Internment Camps ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
North African Origin

This chapter examines how the French state created a crisis through its management of the arrival and installation of the Harkis in 1962. The Harkis, Algerians of North African origin who supported the French army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), faced reprisal violence in Algeria at the end of the war and many were forced to migrate with their families to France. In response, French officials attempted to prevent the Harkis from escaping to France and placed some of those who succeeded in internment camps. Comparing the treatment of the Harkis with that of the Pieds-Noirs, the descendants of European settlers in Algeria who likewise fled to France in 1962, highlights the structural racism underlying French perceptions of and reactions to Harki migration. This chapter also explores the ways in which second-generation Harkis have constructed collective memories of the crisis and their attempts to hold the state responsible for its actions.

6. Hybridity

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Robert J. C. Young
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
American Music ◽  
Cultural Hybridity ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
African American Music ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
The Us

‘Hybridity’ explains that cultural hybridity can be seen as an expansion of W. E. B. Du Bois’ concept of ‘double consciousness’: a painful incompatibility between how people see themselves and how society sees them only in terms of their race. Nevertheless, this has also formed the basis of the extraordinary cultural creativity of African-Americans. Drawing on cultural memory of their African roots, African-Americans have adapted and transformed aspects of European culture encountered in the US, particularly noticeable in the realm of African-American music. A comparable development of a hybridized culture is considered by tracing the emergence of raï music in 1970s Algeria, following the traumatic experiences of the Algerian War of Independence.

Algerian Nationalism: From the Origins to Algerian War of Independence

2017 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Marisa Fois
Keyword(s):  
Algerian War ◽  
International Context ◽  
Arab Nationalism ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Algerian War Of Independence ◽  
Colonial Order ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Independent Country

Arab nationalism is not a monolithic construct. In the case of Algeria, the nationalist period undoubtedly played a significant role in determining the nature of its nationalist movement, its foundational principles and the nature of the future independent country. It was during the nationalist period that disputes regarding the colonial order, autonomy versus independence and the definition of Algerian identity emerged. The anti-colonial revolution occurred after a long period of gestation, the result of a combination of people’s spontaneous initiative, the action of forces fed by new or existing ideas and the influence of the international context. This article provides an overview of Algerian nationalism—including both Arab and Berber nationalisms—from the 1920s to the 1950s, identifying parties, leaders and currents of thought.

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