Re-mapping Algeria(s) in France: Leila Sebbar's Mes Algeries en France and Journal de mes Algeries en France

ISSN： 0963-9489

Source： Modern & Contemporary France, Vol.19, Iss.2, 2011-05, pp. : 129-145

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Abstract

This article investigates the ways in which textual and visual re-territorialisation are negotiated in Leila Sebbar's Mes Algeries en France and Journal de mes Algeries en France, via the layering of personal and historical memory and the superimposition of past and present that is at the core of the relationship between text and image in this work. Using an interrogatory framework which sets theories of autobiography and remembrance in dialogue with critical responses to the power of visual culture and the collective nature of suffering, the analysis explores how the texturing of the relationship between text and image breaks down opposing notions of coloniser/colonised, the authorial 'I' and the Algerian 'other', and ultimately re-maps a plurality of 'Algerias' in France through the multiple identities, spaces, and versions of the Algerian histoire that attempt to re-construct a community out of exile and a collective memory from personal nostalgia.