Lexington Books
Pages: 252
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4985-3735-3 • Hardback • October 2020 • $100.00 • (£77.00)
978-1-4985-3736-0 • eBook • October 2020 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
Aoife Connolly is lecturer of French studies at Technological University Dublin.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Camus, Meursault, Daru, Cormery: The First Pied-Noir Men
Chapter 2: Performing French Algerian Femininity
Chapter 3: Performing Pied-Noir Masculinity
Chapter 4: Performing Childhood and Adolescence through French Algerian Narrators
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Connolly shows how the self-representations of the settler populations who fled to France when Algeria became independent have changed over time, with the topos of hypermasculinity foregrounded during the colonial period becoming tempered by a wider and more complex range of gender roles. She shines valuable new light on these developments by examining a large body works by familiar and lesser known writers and filmmakers, greatly expanding and nuancing our understanding of this field. The twists and turns seen since independence are brought skilfully into focus by mapping them onto ongoing revisions in the reputation of colonial Algeria’s most famous writer, Albert Camus.
— Alec G. Hargreaves, Emeritus Winthrop-King Professor of transcultural French studies, Florida State University
Using the family as a prism through which to view constructions of identity by pied-noir authors, Connolly’s wide-ranging analysis makes an engaging and intellectually rigorous contribution to the academic literature on this important postcolonial community. This thoughtful and historically-contextualised deconstruction of narratives via the categories of masculinity, femininity and youth adds welcome nuance to our understanding of a community that is frequently essentialized. Connolly’s study highlights previously marginalised voices without reifying these or ignoring the congruences between their perspectives and those of the wider pied-noir community.
— Claire Eldridge, associate professor of modern history, University of Leeds