Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Copyright Acknowledgements
- Introduction: A Place in the Word
- 1 Life/Writing in the Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts
- 2 Mouloud Feraoun: Life Story, Life-Writing, History
- 3 Albert Memmi: Fictions of Identity and the Quest for Truth
- 4 Abdelkébir Khatibi: The Deciphering of Memory and the Potential of Postcolonial Identity
- 5 Assia Djebar: History, Selfhood and the Possession of Knowledge
- Conclusion: A Place in the World
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Mouloud Feraoun: Life Story, Life-Writing, History
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Copyright Acknowledgements
- Introduction: A Place in the Word
- 1 Life/Writing in the Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts
- 2 Mouloud Feraoun: Life Story, Life-Writing, History
- 3 Albert Memmi: Fictions of Identity and the Quest for Truth
- 4 Abdelkébir Khatibi: The Deciphering of Memory and the Potential of Postcolonial Identity
- 5 Assia Djebar: History, Selfhood and the Possession of Knowledge
- Conclusion: A Place in the World
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Si le peuple algérien est le peuple maudit de ce siècle, il lui reste à mourir en bloc, le plus tôt sera le mieux. Mais à mourir debout en criant son mépris au bourreau.
Mouloud Feraoun, Journal, 16 January 1957(If the Algerian people are the accursed of this century, the only thing left for them is to die together, and the sooner the better. But to die on their feet, shouting their contempt for the executioner.)
Il est nécessaire que tu me présentes aux lecteurs […] Avec le premier (Le Fils du pauvre), tu parleras de l'oeuvre scolaire en Algérie, etc. C'est une quasi-autobiographie, tu parleras de moi, un peu trop, peut-être… Tu parleras des Kabyles, insuffisamment, peut-être.
Mouloud Feraoun, Lettres à ses amis, letter to Emmanuel Roblès, 10 July 1952(You will need to introduce me to the readers […] With the first (‘The Poor Man's Son’), you'll talk about schoolwork in Algeria, etc. It's a sort of autobiography, so you'll say something about me, perhaps a little too much… You'll say something about the Kabyles, perhaps not enough.)
The publication of Mouloud Feraoun's Le Fils du pauvre (‘The Poor Man's Son’) in 1950 is generally recognised as a founding moment in the literary, cultural and political context of North African writing in French. A claim can be made for this text as the first real expression of the voice and experiences of an indigenous Algerian writer as opposed to the writing concerning North Africa produced by the French themselves during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These texts are often described as ‘Orientalist’ (for example the work of Eugène Fromentin and Théophile Gautier) and ‘exotic’ (for example the novels of Pierre Loti and Louis Bertrand), and they were followed in the 1930s by the group of writers usually assembled under the label ‘l'Ecole d'Alger’, which included, for example, Gabriel Audisio, René-Jean Clot, and the early work of Albert Camus.
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- Information
- Autobiography and IndependenceSelf and Identity in North African Writing in French, pp. 53 - 130Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2003