Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

My main research interests lie in Franco-Algerian literature from the 1980s onwards. I completed my PhD at the University of Exeter in 2012. My thesis was entitled ‘Conflict and Remembrance in Franco-Algerian Literature, 1981-1999’, and in it I explore the work of four authors who embody the divisive history shared by France and Algeria: Azouz Begag, Mehdi Charef, Mounsi, and Leïla Sebbar. My analysis of the primary corpus considers the legacy and memory of the Algerian War of Independence, as well as questions of history, colonial violence, immigration and integration. The period studied is significant in that it traces the increased visibility of the children of Algerian migrants in France, who in the 1980s began to articulate the marginalisation suffered by themselves and their parents. I argue that this marginalisation is a result of French society’s hesitation to confront its Algerian past, as exemplified by the government’s long-lasting denial of the Algerian War. I outline how the primary corpus reflects a desire for visibility amongst France’s Algerian population in the 1980s, which gives way to a more explicit confrontation with the Algerian War and recovering of its memory in the 1990s, prefiguring the French government’s official recognition of the war in 1999. Rather than posit this official recognition as a definitive end to the conflicts engendered by the lack of confrontation with the war, I demonstrate how the questions raised in the primary corpus remain pertinent to contemporary French society, testifying to the enduring legacy of the
Algerian War and France’s colonial past.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons), French, University of Exeter
• MA Literary Translation, University of Exeter
• PhD, French, University of Exeter

Research Clusters

• Francophone

Publications

• 2012, ‘Filling in the Blanks: Memories of 17 October 1961 in Leïla Sebbar’s La Seine était rouge’, Modern & Contemporary France, 20, 3, pp. 307-322.
• 2010, ‘Identity and Identification in Azouz Begag’s Le Gone du Chaâba and Béni ou le paradis privé’, Forum, 11.