Pied-Noir

The Past is Present: Pied-Noir Returns to Algeria

by Amy Hubbell

Nottingham French Studies. Volume 51, Page 66-77 DOI 10.3366/nfs.2012.0007, ISSN 0029-4586, Available Online March 2012

While Algeria has long been a popular subject for travel writers, since its decolonization in 1962, the travelogues... more While Algeria has long been a popular subject for travel writers, since its decolonization in 1962, the travelogues documenting journeys to Algeria have predominantly become returns and reunions with the homeland. Immediately after their exile from Algeria during and after the war for independence, the Pieds-Noirs, or former French citizens of Algeria, began returning to their homeland in their memories, literature, and recently, their films. Early return narratives were almost always filled with nostalgic descriptions of familiar places and sensations in an effort to bridge over the ruptures with the past. By transposing the colonial past onto the present, the travelogues effectively stop time in the homeland. However, more recent returns often demonstrate the instability of the past. Through a study of Marie Cardinal's Au pays de mes racines and Hélène Cixous's Si près, this article investigates how Algerian return narratives have begun to deconstruct themselves, and yet the past is ever present within them.Keywords. Pieds-Noirs, Algeria, Marie Cardinal, Hélène Cixous, Travel, Time

Viewing the past through a 'nostalgeric' lens: Pied-Noir photo-documentaries

by Amy Hubbell

in Textual and Visual Selves: Photography, Film and Comic Art in French Autobiography. Ed. Natalie Edwards, Amy L. Hubbell and Ann Miller. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2011. 167-87.

Returning to the Baobab fou: (Dis)integrating roots in Ken Bugul's and Marie Cardinal's autobiographies

by Amy Hubbell

In Ada Uzoamaka Azodo and Jeanne-Sarah de Larquier (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on Ken Bugul: From alternative choices to oppositional practices. Trenton, N. J.: Africa World Press, 2008. 81-99.

(Re)writing home: repetition and return in Pied-Noir literature

by Amy Hubbell

Dissertation. University of Michigan, 2003.

The wounds of Algeria in Pied-Noir autobiography

by Amy Hubbell

Dalhousie French Studies 81 (Winter 2007): 59-68.

Dual, Divided, and Doubled Selves: Three Women Writing between France and Algeria

by Amy Hubbell

In This 'self' which is not one : Women's life writing in French. Ed. Natalie Edwards and Christopher Hogarth. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 35-46.

Slipping home in Marie Cardinal's Ecoutez la mer

by Amy Hubbell

In Gender and Displacement: "Home" in Contemporary Francophone Women's Autobiography. Ed. Natalie Edwards and Christopher Hogarth. Newcastle, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. 34-45.

"La valise ou le cercueil": un aller-retour dans la memoire des Pieds-Noirs

by Amy Hubbell

Revue Diasporas: histoire et sociétés 12 (octobre 2008): 199-207.

Collecting Souvenirs or Hoarding Memory: The Literary Reconstruction of Algeria

by Amy Hubbell

This work in progress, posted here as it was presented at the University of Queensland on 2 September 2011, provides the English version of the paper below from CIEF with elaboration including works by Leila Sebbar and Nicole Guiraud. Please contact me if you are interested in the corresponding PowerPoint presentation.

For the former French citizens of Algeria who left their homeland during and after the Algerian War from 1954-1962,... more For the former French citizens of Algeria who left their homeland during and after the Algerian War from 1954-1962, Algeria lives on as a sacred location of memory. Almost anyone who has lost a “home,” let alone a homeland, experiences a rupture; but for the Pieds-Noirs and other exiles for whom the choice to leave was equivalent to “la valise ou le cercueil” (the suitcase or the coffin), this separation was traumatic. Attempting to appease their painful nostalgia for a place that no longer exists, some exiles find themselves caught up in collecting memorabilia related to what they lost. For others, collecting both souvenirs and memories becomes obsessive. The psychological illness of compulsive hoarding is often related to traumatic ruptures, and it is estimated that worldwide 1 to 2.5% of the population suffer from it. The goal of this presentation is to explore the link between the traumatic separation from homeland and the fixation on “things” that symbolise the lost country such as this phenomenon is expressed in Franco-Algerian exile literature. Through an analysis of literary works by Marie Cardinal and Leïla Sebbar, I hope to demonstrate that instead of protecting place and memory, the act of hoarding threatens to destroy the very thing it attempts to preserve.

Collection de souvenirs ou accumulation compulsive de la mémoire: la reconstruction littéraire de l'Algérie

by Amy Hubbell

a work in progress on hoarding in French exile literature presented at the Conseil International d'Études Francophones in Aix-en-Provence, France on June 1, 2011. After the study of Marie Cardinal, and not included in this version, I will examine the works of Leïla Sebbar and her use of collecting as it relates to Algerian memory.