Pieds-Noirs

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

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

by Amy Hubbell

Dissertation. University of Michigan, 2003.

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.

(Re)turning to Ruins: Pied-Noir Visual Returns to Algeria

by Amy Hubbell

Modern and Contemporary France, Volume 19, Issue 2
2011, Pages 147 - 161

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In commemoration of the 45th year of their exile, 500 pieds-noirs and their families... more [accents omitted]

In commemoration of the 45th year of their exile, 500 pieds-noirs and their families gathered in Toulouse, France in May 2007. During their meeting, the Amicale de Saida viewed the film Sada… On revient! sur les pas de notre enfance, which chronicles the return voyage of members of the community and their encounters with the places of their past. The amateur film provides a return to Algeria for the pieds-noirs who could not physically make the journey. While many buildings in the images were in ruins, the pieds-noirs did not view the present and experienced a return to somewhere other than what was filmed. Sada… On revient! is one of numerous journeys to Algeria that have occurred in the past 50 years. Notable Algerian-born authors Albert Camus, Marie Cardinal, Leila Sebbar, Jacques Derrida and Helene Cixous have all participated in written and real returns to Algeria, and they all reflect on the ruins of Algeria that haunt them in their exile. By analysing the representation of real ruins in documented returns to Algeria, this article demonstrates how ruins of lost locations hold potential to ruin the stability of the past.

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.

L’Algérie récurrente et l’Algérie errante dans l’écriture des Françaises d’Algérie

by Amy Hubbell

in Frictions et devenirs dans les écritures migrantes au féminin. Enracinements et renégociations. Ed. Névine El Nossery and Anna Rocca.
Editions universitaires europeennes (02-12-2011).
ISBN-13: 978-3-8417-8146-8
ISBN-10: 3841781462

book abstract:

Cette collection d’articles retrace les différentes facettes de la mobilité inhérente à... more book abstract:

Cette collection d’articles retrace les différentes facettes de la mobilité inhérente à l’écriture migrante au féminin dans différentes aires géographiques, tels le Maghreb, l’Afrique sub-saharienne, les Caraïbes, le Moyen-Orient, le Québec et la France. Ces articles explorent les frictions et les devenirs qui se dégagent de ces traversées transgressives et problématiques. Organisé autour de trois axes : « Le questionnement identitaire », « La violence de l’exil » et « La mémoire fragmentée », cet ouvrage contribue au questionnement identitaire de la migration, ciblant un lectorat constitué de spécialistes en littérature de la migration, mais aussi de passionnés d’écriture au féminin. Les auteures et artistes étudiées dans ce collectif contribuent à l’émergence d’une certaine altérité littéraire qui prend force d’un privé autobiographique déplacé. Les univers narratifs qu’elles créent font ainsi éclater les contradictions des rhétoriques politiques classiques et démontrent que, même dans les circonstances les plus désavantageuses, la création artistique demeure un acte social décisif de transformation.

Textual and Visual Selves: Photography, Film, and Comic Art in French Autobiography

by Amy Hubbell

Co-edited with Ann Miller and Natalie Edwards. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2011.

This collection of essays explores links between the visual and written self in autobiographical pieces in... more This collection of essays explores links between the visual and written self in autobiographical pieces in contemporary French and Francophone literature.

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.

"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.

Looking Back: Deconstructing Postcolonial Blindness in Nostalgérie

by Amy Hubbell

CELAAN 3.1-2 (Fall 2004): 85-95.