A Practical Guide to French Harki Literature

This interdisciplinary collection of essays unites researchers from many divergent fields in a common effort to explore the complexity, diversity, and paradoxes of French Harki literature. Given the growing body of literature written by, for, and about the Harkis, this project begins to fill a significant research gap. Although French Harki literature continues to evolve and diversify with each passing day, this book represents the first systematic attempt to delineate the significance of this emerging field within the larger context of Francophone literature, migration studies, and diaspora studies. Furthermore, the invaluable contributions of noted historians which open the volume offer an essential theoretical framework which places Harki literature in its appropriate historical context on both sides of the Mediterranean. As the title of this collection unequivocally implies, this volume was intentionally designed to foster meaningful collaboration with scholars from disciplines such as French/Francophone literature, history, anthropology, and sociology in a common effort to create intellectually rigorous essays which are also accessible to a broad audience. A Practical Guide to French Harki Literature is a much-needed point of departure that strives to encourage other researchers to contribute to the conversation regarding the past and present repercussions of the construction of the social group known as the Harkis.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. 1962-2014: The Historical Construction of Harki Literature Abderahmen Moumen Chapter 2. Writing As Performance: Literary Production and The Stakes of Memory Giulia Fabbiano Chapter 3.From the Colonization of Algeria to the Repatriation of the Harkis Régis Pierret Chapter 4. Making Sense of the Harki Past: Harki History, Collective Memory, and Historiography 1954-2013 Laura Sims Chapter 5. Harki Daughters’ “Righting” Narratives: Resistance Identity and Littérature Naturelle? Geraldine Enjelvin Chapter 6. Creating Shared Memories in Four Harki Narratives Susan Ireland Chapter 7. Autofictional Testimony: Writing in Place of the Father in Zahia Rahmani’s Moze Laura Reeck Chapter 8. In the Name of the Father: In the Voice of the Other Kenneth Olsson Chapter 9. Two Literary Texts That Concretize the Goals of the “Harki Spring”: Taking Aim at the Nefarious Effects of Institutional Silence Keith Moser Chapter 10. Reconstructing Harki Sites of Memory in the Graphic Novel Jennifer Howell Chapter 11. Refinding/redefining familial bonds: Farid Boudjellal’s Le Cousin Harki Lucie Knight-Santos Appendix A: Interview with Mehdi Charef Laura Reeck Trans. Matt Reeck Appendix B: English Translation of Excerpts from Moze Laura Reeck Appendix C: First English Translation of J.M.G. Le Clézio’s “The Child From Under the Bridge” Keith Moser

About the Author :
Keith Moser is associate professor of French at Mississippi State University.

Review :
[T]his volume fills a dire lack; as such and intended as a 'point of departure', it is a must-read. Professor Keith Moser presents a welcomed interdisciplinary collection regarding the Harkis, native Muslim military auxiliaries who fought on the side of the French during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). The reader will discover an impressive group of specialists who contribute historical, anthropological, sociological, as well as literary studies in the anthology. This is an appreciated and valuable compilation for students and scholars of colonial and post-colonial studies, incomplete decolonisation, and especially French-Algerian anamnesis and amnesia. Moser’s translations are particularly well done. There is little to criticize...regarding this book’s principal merit, i.e., providing an analytical anthology surveying distinguished works dealing with the Harkis since 1962. Thanks to Harki activists and writers and now Professor Moser and his contributors, the so-called oubliés de la France/the forgotten of France are increasingly inoubliables/unforgettable. [A] very informative and much needed interdisciplinary volume. . . .[W]ell-written, detailed analyses of literary texts. . . .A Practical Guide to French Harki Literature is unquestionably an important, enlightening volume for all scholars conducting research on francophonie literature, on colonialism, on decolonization, on war, on immigration, on identity, on Algeria and on other such topics. Bringing together an impressive array of scholars, Moser’s interdisciplinary volume makes a valuable and accessible contribution to the emerging field of Harki studies. A Practical Guide to French Harki Literature engages with a crucial yet still overlooked topic from a combined historical and literary perspective. Its contributions lead the way for a systematic study of Harki literature in the larger context of contemporary French-language writing.