Download or read book The Algerian New Novel written by Valérie K. Orlando and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-05-10 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disputing the claim that Algerian writing during the struggle against French colonial rule dealt almost exclusively with revolutionary themes, The Algerian New Novel shows how Algerian authors writing in French actively contributed to the experimental forms of the period, expressing a new age literarily as well as politically and culturally. Looking at canonical Algerian literature as part of the larger literary production in French during decolonization, Valérie K. Orlando considers how novels by Rachid Boudjedra, Mohammed Dib, Assia Djebar, Nabile Farès, Yamina Mechakra, and Kateb Yacine both influenced and were reflectors of the sociopolitical and cultural transformation that took place during this period in Algeria. Although their themes were rooted in Algeria, the avant-garde writing styles of these authors were influenced by early twentieth-century American modernists, the New Novelists of 1940s–50s France, and African American authors of the 1950s–60s. This complex mix of influences led Algerian writers to develop a unique modern literary aesthetic to express their world, a tradition of experimentation and fragmentation that still characterizes the work of contemporary Algerian francophone writers.

Download or read book French Orientalist Literature in Algeria 1845 1882 written by Sage Goellner and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book applies the growing theoretical field of hauntology to a body of literature which has previously been examined through the lenses of Orientalism and exoticism. Through a chronological study and close readings of the writings of Théophile Gautier, Eugène Fromentin, Gustave Flaubert, and Pierre Loti, the project identifies haunting echoes within the texts which demonstrate an ambivalence of attitudes towards colonialism and which undermine any claim towards a monolithic imperialist French ideology. Whereas hauntological theory has be used to illuminate literature from the Francophone post-colonial period, it has not yet been applied to texts produced during the French colonial period. The originality of this project thus lies in the application of Derridean hauntological theory to works from an earlier period, each of which in one way or another addresses the theme of colonial violence. By revisiting four classic works of colonial Orientalism with haunting as a principal theme, this analysis provides a critical witnessing of France’s violent colonization of Algeria that demonstrates France’s latent anxieties about the colonial project at the time.

Download or read book The Meursault Investigation written by Kamel Daoud and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2015 “A tour-de-force reimagining of Camus’s The Stranger, from the point of view of the mute Arab victims.” —The New Yorker He was the brother of “the Arab” killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus’s classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling’s memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: he gives his brother a story and a name—Musa—and describes the events that led to Musa’s casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach. In a bar in Oran, night after night, he ruminates on his solitude, on his broken heart, on his anger with men desperate for a god, and on his disarray when faced with a country that has so disappointed him. A stranger among his own people, he wants to be granted, finally, the right to die. The Stranger is of course central to Daoud’s story, in which he both endorses and criticizes one of the most famous novels in the world. A worthy complement to its great predecessor, The Meursault Investigation is not only a profound meditation on Arab identity and the disastrous effects of colonialism in Algeria, but also a stunning work of literature in its own right, told in a unique and affecting voice.

Download or read book A Savage War of Peace written by Alistair Horne and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoroughly sharp and honest treatment of a brutal conflict.The Algerian War (1954-1962) was a savage colonial war, killing an estimated one million Muslim Algerians and expelling the same number of European settlers from their homes. It was to cause the fall of six French prime minsters and the collapse of the Fourth Repbulic. It came close to bringing down de Gaulle and - twice - to plunging France into civil war.The story told here contains heroism and tragedy, and poses issues of enduring relevance beyond the confines of either geography or time. Horne writes with the extreme intelligence and perspicacity that are his trademarks.

Download or read book On Leave written by Daniel Anselme and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A long-lost French novel in which three soldiers return home from an unpopular, unspeakable war When On Leave was published in Paris in 1957, as France's engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody, it told people things they did not want to hear. It vividly described what it was like for soldiers to return home from an unpopular war in a faraway place. The book received a handful of reviews, it was never reprinted, it disappeared from view. With no outcome to the war in sight, its power to disturb was too much to bear. Through David Bellos's translation, this lost classic has been rediscovered. Spare, forceful, and moving, it describes a week in the lives of a sergeant, a corporal, and an infantryman, each home on leave in Paris. What these soldiers have to say can't be heard, can't even be spoken; they find themselves strangers in their own city, unmoored from their lives. Full of sympathy and feeling, informed by the many hours Daniel Anselme spent talking to conscripts in Paris, On Leave is a timeless evocation of what the history books can never record: the shame and the terror felt by men returning home from war.

Download or read book I Die by This Country written by Fawzia Zouari and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2018-04-11 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first novel available to English readers by Fawzia Zouari, one of the most important North African authors writing today, begins with an emergency crew’s arrival at a Parisian apartment. Two emaciated young women, sisters, are brought out on stretchers. To the crowd of onlookers the women’s condition is mystifying; for the two sisters, this is the inescapable end to a tragic series of events. Inspired by an actual news story from the French headlines, I Die by This Country introduces us to Nacéra and Amira. Casting her mind back in the midst of the opening pages’ upheaval, Nacéra pieces together her fragmentary knowledge of her parents’ lives in rural French Algeria and their immigration to Paris in the years following Algeria’s war for independence. Her memories of how both she and Amira struggled to find their place as children of immigrants reveals the enormous stress of social exclusion and identity conflicts facing immigrant youth. Nacéra and her family yearn for acceptance, but the reader sees this dream becoming increasingly unattainable. Zouari’s frank prose and penetrating storytelling deftly relates the multigenerational experience of Franco-Algerian immigration during the last quarter of the twentieth century. As France continues, like so many western countries, to struggle with questions regarding national identity, immigration, and its colonial past, the experiences depicted in this novel resonate more than ever.

Download or read book Tomorrow They Won t Dare to Murder Us written by Joseph Andras and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lyrical and radical, a debut novel that created a sensation in France Winner of the Prix Goncourt for first novel, one of the most prestigious literary awards in France A young revolutionary plants a bomb in a factory on the outskirts of Algiers during the Algerian War. The bomb is timed to explode after work hours, so no one will be hurt. But the authorities have been watching. He is caught, the bomb is defused, and he is tortured, tried in a day, condemned to death, and thrown into a cell to await the guillotine. A routine event, perhaps, in a brutal conflict that ended the lives of more than a million Muslim Algerians. But what if the militant is a “pied-noir”? What if his lover was a member of the French Resistance? What happens to a “European” who chooses the side of anti-colonialism? By turns lyrical, meditative, and heart-stoppingly suspenseful, this novel by Joseph Andras, based on a true story, was a literary and political sensation in France, winning the Prix Goncourt for First Novel and being acclaimed by Le Monde as “vibrantly lyrical and somber” and by the journal La Croix as a “masterpiece”.

Download or read book Albert Camus the Algerian written by David Carroll and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these original readings of Albert Camus' novels, short stories, and political essays, David Carroll concentrates on Camus' conflicted relationship with his Algerian background and finds important critical insights into questions of justice, the effects of colonial oppression, and the deadly cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism that characterized the Algerian War and continues to surface in the devastation of postcolonial wars today. During France's "dirty war" in Algeria, Camus called for an end to the violence perpetrated against civilians by both France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and supported the creation of a postcolonial, multicultural, and democratic Algeria. His position was rejected by most of his contemporaries on the Left and has, ironically, earned him the title of colonialist sympathizer as well as the scorn of important postcolonial critics. Carroll rescues Camus' work from such criticism by emphasizing the Algerian dimensions of his literary and philosophical texts and by highlighting in his novels and short stories his understanding of both the injustice of colonialism and the tragic nature of Algeria's struggle for independence. By refusing to accept that the sacrifice of innocent human lives can ever be justified, even in the pursuit of noble political goals, and by rejecting simple, ideological binaries (West vs. East, Christian vs. Muslim, "us" vs. "them," good vs. evil), Camus' work offers an alternative to the stark choices that characterized his troubled times and continue to define our own. "What they didn't like, was the Algerian, in him," Camus wrote of his fictional double in The First Man. Not only should "the Algerian" in Camus be "liked," Carroll argues, but the Algerian dimensions of his literary and political texts constitute a crucial part of their continuing interest. Carroll's reading also shows why Camus' critical perspective has much to contribute to contemporary debates stemming from the global "war on terror."

Download or read book The Angels Die written by Yasmina Khadra and published by Gallic Books. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award winning author Yasmina Khadra gives us a stunning panorama of life in Algeria between the two world wars. 'A writer who can understand man wherever he is' The New York Times Even as a child living hand-to-mouth in a ghetto, Turambo dreamt of a better future. So when his family find a decent home in the city of Oran anything seems possible. But colonial Algeria is no place to be ambitious for those of Arab-Berber ethnicity. Through a succession of menial jobs, the constants for Turambo are his rage at the injustice surrounding him, and a reliable left hook. This last opens the door to a boxing apprenticeship, which will ultimately offer Turambo a choice: to take his chance at sporting greatness or choose a simpler life beside the woman he loves.

Download or read book Our Riches written by Kaouther Adimi and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The powerful English debut of a rising young French star, Our Riches is a marvelous, surprising, hybrid novel about a beloved Algerian bookshop A Library Journal Best Book of the Year Finalist for the PEN Translation Prize Winner of the French American Foundation Prize Our Riches celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto “by the young, for the young,” discovering the twenty-four-year-old Albert Camus in 1937. His entire archive was twice destroyed by the French colonial forces, but despite financial difficulties (he was hopelessly generous) and the vicissitudes of wars and revolutions, Charlot (often compared to the legendary bookseller Sylvia Beach) carried forward Les Vraies Richesses as a cultural hub of Algiers. Our Riches interweaves Charlot’s story with that of another twenty-year-old, Ryad (dispatched in 2017 to empty the old shop and repaint it). Ryad’s no booklover, but old Abdallah, the bookshop’s self-appointed, nearly illiterate guardian, opens the young man’s mind. Cutting brilliantly from Charlot to Ryad, from the 1930s to current times, from WWII to the bloody 1961 Free Algeria demonstrations in Paris, Adimi delicately packs a monumental history of intense political drama into her swift and poignant novel. But most of all, it’s a hymn to the book and to the love of books.

Download or read book Fantasia an Algerian Cavalcade written by Assia Djebar and published by Heinemann Educational Publishers. This book was released on 1993 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this stunning novel, Assia Djebar intertwines the history of her native Algeria with episodes from the life of a young girl in a story stretching from the French conquest in 1830 to the War of Liberation of the 1950s. The girl, growing up in the old Roman coastal town of Cherchel, sees her life in contrast to that of a neighboring French family, and yearns for more than law and tradition allow her to experience. Headstrong and passionate, she escapes from the cloistered life of her family to join her brother in the maquis' fight against French domination. Djebar's exceptional descriptive powers bring to life the experiences of girls and women caught up in the dual struggle for independence - both their own and Algeria's.

Download or read book Algerian Chronicles written by Albert Camus and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-06 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than fifty years after Algerian independence, Albert Camus’ Algerian Chronicles appears here in English for the first time. Published in France in 1958, the same year the Algerian War brought about the collapse of the Fourth French Republic, it is one of Camus’ most political works—an exploration of his commitments to Algeria. Dismissed or disdained at publication, today Algerian Chronicles, with its prescient analysis of the dead end of terrorism, enjoys a new life in Arthur Goldhammer’s elegant translation. “Believe me when I tell you that Algeria is where I hurt at this moment,” Camus, who was the most visible symbol of France’s troubled relationship with Algeria, writes, “as others feel pain in their lungs.” Gathered here are Camus’ strongest statements on Algeria from the 1930s through the 1950s, revised and supplemented by the author for publication in book form. In her introduction, Alice Kaplan illuminates the dilemma faced by Camus: he was committed to the defense of those who suffered colonial injustices, yet was unable to support Algerian national sovereignty apart from France. An appendix of lesser-known texts that did not appear in the French edition complements the picture of a moralist who posed questions about violence and counter-violence, national identity, terrorism, and justice that continue to illuminate our contemporary world.

Download or read book Assia Djebar written by Jane Hiddleston and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than fifty years, Assia Djebar has used the tools of poetry, fiction, drama, and film to vividly portray the complex world of Muslim women. In the process, she has become one of the most important figures in North African literature. In Assia Djebar, Jane Hiddleston traces Djebar’s development as a writer against the backdrop of North Africa’s tumultuous history. Djebar’s early writings were largely an attempt to delineate the experience of being a woman, an intellectual, and an Algerian, but her more recent work evinces a growing sense that the influence of French culture on Algerian letters may make such a project impossible. The first book-length study of this indispensable writer, Assia Djebar will interest scholars of post-colonial literature, women’s studies, or Francophone culture.

Download or read book Algeria written by Martin Evans and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-14 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After liberating itself from French colonial rule in one of the twentieth century's most brutal wars of independence, Algeria became a standard-bearer for the non-aligned movement. By the 1990s, however, its revolutionary political model had collapsed, degenerating into a savage conflict between the military and Islamist guerillas that killed some 200,000 citizens. In this lucid and gripping account, Martin Evans and John Phillips explore Algeria's recent and very bloody history, demonstrating how the high hopes of independence turned into anger as young Algerians grew increasingly alienated. Unemployed, frustrated by the corrupt military regime, and excluded by the West, the post-independence generation needed new heroes, and some found them in Osama bin Laden and the rising Islamist movement. Evans and Phillips trace the complex roots of this alienation, arguing that Algeria's predicament-political instability, pressing economic and social problems, bad governance, a disenfranchised youth-is emblematic of an arc of insecurity stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Looking back at the pre-colonial and colonial periods, they place Algeria's complex present into historical context, demonstrating how successive governments have manipulated the past for their own ends. The result is a fractured society with a complicated and bitter relationship with the Western powers-and an increasing tendency to export terrorism to France, America, and beyond.

Download or read book The Mischief written by Assia Djebar and published by . This book was released on 1958 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journal 1955 1962 written by Mouloud Feraoun and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ?This honest man, this good man, this man who never did wrong to anyone, who devoted his life to the public good, and who was one of the greatest writers in Algeria, has been murdered. . . . Not by accident, not by mistake, but called by his name and killed with preference.? So wrote Germaine Tillion in Le Monde shortly after Mouloud Feraoun?s assassination by a right wing French terrorist group, the Organisation Armäe Secr_te, just three days before the official cease-fire ended Algeria?s eight-year battle for independence from France. However, not even the gunmen of the OAS could prevent Feraoun?s journal from being published. Journal, 1955?1962 appeared posthumously in French in 1962 and remains the single most important account of everyday life in Algeria during decolonization. Feraoun was one of Algeria?s leading writers. He was a friend of Albert Camus, Emmanuel Robl_s, Pierre Bourdieu, and other French and North African intellectuals. A committed teacher, he had dedicated his life to preparing Algeria?s youth for a better future. As a Muslim and Kabyle writer, his reflections on the war in Algeria afford penetrating insights into the nuances of Algerian nationalism, as well as into complex aspects of intellectual, colonial, and national identity. Feraoun?s Journal captures the heartbreak of a writer profoundly aware of the social and political turmoil of the time. This classic account, now available in English, should be read by anyone interested in the history of European colonialism and the tragedies of contemporary Algeria.

Download or read book Women of Algiers in Their Apartment written by Assia Djebar and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Translated for the first time into English, this collection of short fiction by one of the leading writers of North Africa details the plight of Algerian women and raises far-reaching issues that speak to us all. Women of Algiers quickly sold out its first printing of 15,000 in France and was hugely popular in Italy, but the book was denounced in Algeria for its criticism of the postcolonial socialist regime, which denied and subjugated women even as it celebrated the liberation of men. It was the first work to do so openly. These stylistically innovative, lyrical stories address the cloistering of women, the implications of reticence, and the significance of language and its connection to oppression (Djebar calls official Arabic "an authoritarian language that is simultaneously the language of men"). Mixing newly written pieces with older ones, Djebar attempts "to bring the past into a dialogue with the present". The stories raise issues surrounding this passage from colonial to postcolonial culture - national literature, cultural authenticity, and the impact of war on both men and women. The book's title comes from a Delacroix painting that depicts a unique glimpse of the harem, an emblem of the dual violation of Algerian women, both colonial and gendered.