Rewriting the memory of immigration: Samuel Zaoui’s Saint Denis bout du monde

This article reflects on the memory of North-African immigration in twentieth-century France, and focuses more particularly on the fate of the chibanis, the first generation of immigrants who came from Algeria to work in France during the economic boom of the post WWII era. Grounded in the works of historians of memory Nora and Ricoeur, this chapter analyzes how Samuel Zaoui’s novel Saint Denis Bout du monde portrays first-generation immigrants in a new light. Indeed, moving away from the traditional, largely negative, stories of loss, the novel partakes of new narratives of regaining and repairing, what Susan Ireland calls ‘a kind of Narrative recovery.’ The novel can be read as the story of the forgotten generation, which repairs collective amnesia as it regains memory, in order to reconcile itself with the past. This article goes further to show how a new narrative of reconciliation is able to trigger the shift in the episteme of migrant literature.

Representations of the harkis in contemporary French-language films

This chapter examines portrayals of the harkis in French-language films depicting the Algerian war of independence and focuses in particular on those produced since 2000. The first years of the 2000s, which have been described as a turning point in the production of films on the war, saw the release of a significant number of fiction films on the conflict and its aftermath, including Philippe Faucon’s La Trahison (2006), Laurent Herbier’s Mon colonel (2007), Medhi Charef’s Cartouches gauloises (2007), Florent-Emilio Siri’s L’Ennemi intime (2007), and Alain Tasma’s Harkis (2006). While most of the films are set in Algeria and portray the circumstances that led to the harkis’ uprooting from their homeland, Tasma’s Harkis focuses on their experience of immigration in France. Taken together, they shed light on the trans-Mediterranean dimension of the harkis’ lives and identity and illustrate the painful consequences of their deracination

Harragas in Mediterranean illiterature and cinema

This chapter examines literary and cinematic representations of unauthorized migrations across the Mediterranean Sea. Illiterature encompasses the body of work that tackles clandestine crossings and strives to document the undocumented. Of the three general characteristics of illiterature, which include a male-dominated sub-genre (il-literature) and the depiction of Europe as a Fortress (île-literature), the present essay focuses on the symbolism of sickness (ill-literature). It addresses the responsibility of smugglers and Islamist networks in leave-taking. Hakim Abderrezak scrutinizes nicknames and naming in illiterature and Mediterranean cinema. Paying close attention to the handling of trans-Mediterranean crossings by mass media, conservative political discourse and anti-immigration policies, to which these fictions often seek to provide an alternative narrative, the chapter explores two novels, Ben Jelloun’s Leaving Tangier and Mohamed Teriah’s Les “Harragas” ou Les Barques de la mort, and two cinematic works, Merzak Allouache’s Harragas and Mohsen Melliti’s Io, l’altro. The analysis investigates the ongoing ex-centricity of migrations to Europe, suggesting that the Mediterranean Sea has been transformed into a mass grave --a seametery -- and that the post-9/11 hegemonic discourse, isolationist politics and the widespread conflation of migration and terrorism all participate in this genocide.

Seeking paths to existence in Rachid Djaïdani’s Rengaine

This chapter examines Rachid Djaïdani’sfilm Rengaine which, like his previous works, questions classification, eludes labels, and fosters universalist ideals. Rengaine initiates a dialogue between the particular and the universal, between the traditional family order marked by patriarchal domination and the assertion of a cultural, ethnic, and sexual identity whose fluidity makes it open to negotiation.

Breaking the chains of ethnic identity: Faïza Guène, Saphia Azzeddine, and Nadia Bouzid, or the birth of a new Maghrebi-French women’s literature

This chapter demonstrates how the media representation of immigration in France is at odds with the recent production of literary works by French authors of Maghrebi origins. Referring to novels by Faïza Guène (Les gens du Balto), Saphia Azzeddine (La Mecque-Phuket), and Nadia Bouzid (Quand Beretta est morte), it shows how the concerns of the “first” and “second” generation of immigrants are a thing of the past, as these writers choose to deconstruct the usual discourse about Maghrebi-French people, inscribe their narrative in different literary traditions, and assert their place in Literature.

‘L’oued revient toujours dans son lit’: Franco-Maghrebi identity in Hassan Legzouli’s film Ten’ja

The complex question of identity has always been the center of interest of Franco-Maghrebi literature and cinema. It is also the main subject in Ten’ja, a 2004 film by Franco-Moroccan director Hassan Legzouli. This article attempts to outline the key moments in Nordine, the central character ’s transformation and initiation from denial to acceptance of his double-sided identity to climax in an essential understanding of his Franco-Maghrebi status north and south of the Mediterranean. Nordine successfully reconciles his multiple identities by the end of his transformative journey. The article explores how Legzouli depicts the journey of Franco-Maghrebi characters in comparison with other films of the same genre. The movie, by his structure and chosen topics, is a typical road movie, but Legzouli’s final twist distinguishes it from previous movies in the same field.

Beur and banlieue television comedies: new perspectives on immigration

This article analyzes Fortunes and Aïcha, two TV series respectively directed by Stéphane Meunier and Yamina Benguigui. It examines the implications of bringing immigration to the masses through the comedy genre and argues that minorities are going through a process of increased visibility, acceptance, and integration on the mass media landscape. However, this study remains critical since it also considers the conundrum of entertaining audiences with comedies based on immigration while offering a realistic, modern, yet non-stereotypical image of the immigrant.

The immigrant in Abdellatif Kechiche’s cinematic work: transcending the question of origins

This chapter examines Abdellatif Kechiche’s movies La faute à Voltaire (2000), L’Esquive (2002) et La graine et le mulet (2007) which tell the stories of three characters of Maghrebi origins from three different generations: Krimo (L’Esquive), Jallel (La faute à Voltaire) and Slimane (La graine et le mulet). It examines how, from narrative and cinematographic perspectives, a three-generation time span produces characters and communities whose characteristics, idiosyncrasies and quest differ from one another. Furthermore, the article points out the different cultural references displayed by the film director, who anchors his characters within a culturally hybrid environment, thereby attempting to thwart the traps of communitarianism and to transcend the question of origins

From daughter to mother, from sister to brother: building identities in Faïza Guène’s novels

This essay examines Faïza Guène’s novels and traces the evolution of themes of identity formation and gender construction as they are narrated and developed in each work. It emphasizes Guène’s determination to reject stereotypes associated with the Maghrebi-French youth, and highlights her development as a writer over the past ten years, as well as her shift in thematic interest. Throughout her novels, a visible progression emerges in the construction of her characters, whose behaviors are symbolic of the transformations of French society. Not only do the protagonists take risks, in order to empower themselves and their loved ones but they also cast a critical look upon society, as they realize the need to fight against prejudices.

‘Qui fait la France?’ New configurations of Frenchness in contemporary urban fiction

This essay traces the change in focus from beur literature in the 1980s to urban literature in the 1990s onwards. Whereas beur literature showed characters torn between their original culture and their adopted culture, urban literature presents characters claiming and asserting their belonging to France and refusing to be confined to racist stereotypes. Relying on a collection of short stories entitled Chroniques d’une société annoncée published in 2005 by a group of writers named Qui Fait la France?, Puig shows how the short stories give fresh and different representations of people living in the banlieue.