Between Transmission and Silence: Recovering Harki Memories in The Art of Losing

Joanna Ducey

doi:10.31178/ubr.11.1.2

Abstract

Alice Zeniter’s 2017 novel The Art of Losing, translated recently by Frank Wynne from French to English, explores how buried histories resurface and haunt generations to come, despite national efforts to ignore, if not minimalize, the enduring impacts of colonialism, independence struggles and exile. Set in contemporary France in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks, and loosely inspired by Zeniter’s own family history, the book follows Naïma, a young woman of Algerian decent who grapples with a largely unknown and misconstrued harki heritage. Drawing on Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, this article investigates intergenerational transmission of memory, trauma, and silence around themes such as war, exile and integration.

Highlights

Alice Zeniter’s 2017 epic novel The Art of Losing, translated recently by Frank Wynne from French to English, investigates how concealed histories reemerge and haunt subsequent generations, despite national efforts to disregard, if not minimalize, the enduring impacts of colonialism, independence struggles and exile
Zeniter engages in the complicated memory politics of both France and Algeria surrounding silenced harki narratives, which have remained to this day almost entirely off-frame
The term “harki” refers to any Muslim Algerian native having assisted the French army during the Algerian War

Summary

Introduction

Alice Zeniter’s 2017 epic novel The Art of Losing, translated recently by Frank Wynne from French to English, investigates how concealed histories reemerge and haunt subsequent generations, despite national efforts to disregard, if not minimalize, the enduring impacts of colonialism, independence struggles and exile. While these remembrances have prompted a necessary and painful re-examination of collective memory (coined the memory wars), the repression of nearly two centuries of acknowledgement and remembrance has turned into a trauma at the personal, national and transnational level.[4] Zeniter engages in the complicated memory politics of both France and Algeria surrounding silenced harki narratives, which have remained to this day almost entirely off-frame.

Results

Conclusion