Cultural memory and amnesia: the Algerian War and ‘second-generation’ immigrant literature in France

Hiddleston, Jane

Journal of Romance Studies (2003), 3, (1), 59–71.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/jrs.3.1.59
Language: English
Pages: 13

Abstract

This article analyses the complex ways in which memories of the Algerian war resurface in literary texts by ‘second-generation’ immigrants in France. Taking as a starting point recent discussions of the difference between ‘history’ and ‘collective memory’, I examine how recollections of the Algerian war complicate both of these terms. While the ‘history’ of the war was subjected to censorship and distortion, the memories recurring in the work of the ‘second-generation’ immigrants Leïla Sebbar and Mehdi Charef do not consist of a coherent testimony but of a series of partial, spectral traces. Furthermore, myths of collective identification are unsettled and undone, since both writers emphasize the singularity and isolation of immigrant memories, and their dissociation from myths of community. Finally, I conclude by questioning this focus on the irreducibly intimate or personal sphere, drawing attention to the problematic implications of political disengagement and suggesting that memory should be conceived as a complex conjunction of the singular and the collective.

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