Decolonizing Memory: Algeria and the Politics of Testimony

About the Book

The magnitude of the legal violence exercised by the French to colonize and occupy Algeria (1830-1962) is such that only aesthetic works have been able to register its enduring effects. In Decolonizing Memory Jill Jarvis examines the power of literature to provide what demographic data, historical facts, and legal trials have not in terms of attesting to and accounting for this destruction. Taking up the unfinished work of decolonization since 1962, Algerian writers have played a crucial role in forging historical memory and nurturing political resistance-their work helps to make possible what state violence has rendered almost unthinkable. Drawing together readings of multilingual texts by Yamina Mechakra, Waciny Laredj, Zahia Rahmani, Fadhma Aith Mansour Amrouche, Assia Djebar, and Samira Negrouche alongside theoretical, juridical, visual, and activist texts from both Algeria's national liberation war (1954-1962) and war on civilians (1988-1999), this book challenges temporal and geographical frameworks that have implicitly organized studies of cultural memory around Euro-American reference points. Jarvis shows how this literature rewrites history, disputes state authority to arbitrate justice, and cultivates a multilingual archive for imagining decolonized futures.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. The Future of Memory  1
1. Remnants of Muslims  27
2. Untranslatable Justice  63
3. Mourning Revolt  98
4. Open Elegy  141
Conclusion. Prisons without Walls  168
Notes  197
Bibliography  255
Index  267

About the Author :
Jill Jarvis is Assistant Professor of French at Yale University.

Review :
“Decolonizing Memory is a remarkable account of literature as a form of witnessing and the aesthetic as the primary register for imagining the unthinkable. Presented with elegance and a keen attention to language, the book locates Algeria at the center of the traumas of the twentieth century and demonstrates how literature could push back against the politics of silence promoted by the state. This is postcolonial scholarship at its best-theoretically sophisticated and historically grounded.” - Simon Gikandi, Robert Schirmer Professor of English, Princeton University “Jill Jarvis's comparative study of Algeria, which engages with Arabic materials alongside the French, is very impressive. Meeting a significant demand in the field, Decolonizing Memory is a strong addition to Francophone studies, memory studies, and postcolonial studies and it will appeal to all those interested in the relationship between justice and the literary.” - Ranjana Khanna, author of (Algeria Cuts: Women and Representation, 1830 to the Present) “By engaging with literary works that span decades and continents, Decolonizing Memory is a useful text to think with across disciplinary lines. . . . By arguing that literature occupies a special place in the analysis of colonialism, Jarvis entreats scholars in other fields to take lit­erature seriously.” - Meghan Tinsley (French History) “Decolonizing Memory is a promising contribution to the flourishing research being done in the field of Memory Studies, that is challenging the Western and in this case the French politics of testimony from the postcolonial point of view.” - T. S. Kavitha (Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy) “Jarvis offers her readers a compelling theoretic work. . . . Her text marks a significant contribution to Francophone literary theory at a time when Algeria is experiencing a new chapter in its history, with both its citizens and its writers continuing the fight for justice as they hope for a brighter future.” - Mildred Mortimer (International Journal of Middle East Studies) "Decolonizing Memory is a welcome contribution to the emerging field of postcolonial memory studies. A theoretically sophisticated intervention in debates about the representation of violence and collective trauma in colonial and postcolonial settings. . . ." - Olivia C. Harrison (MLQ)