Writing the Black Decade

Joseph Ford is lecturer in French studies at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Ford assesses the focus of Algerian writers, artists, and journalists' focus on the events of Algeria's Black Decade (1990s) in their literary and journalistic narratives. He argues that particular authors relied on familiar—recidivist—tropes of Algerian violence inherited from the 1954–62 Algerian War of Independence, mirroring the headlines in the French press. Ford proposes the tropes were appropriated in three ways: some gathered literary accounts rooted in oppositional rendering (Rachid Mimouni, Assia Djebar, and Maïssa Bey [Samia Benameur]); others (Salim Bachi and Habib Ayyoub) inserted their testimonials in allegorical or mythical frameworks…. In dialogue with Valérie Orlando's The Algerian New Novel and Jane Hiddleston’s Writing after Postcolonialism, this informative work problematizes the position of writers facing national tragedy. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Writing the Black DecadeChapter 1: Rethinking Testimonial Literature in Rachid Mimouni, Assia Djebar and Maïssa BeyChapter 2: Exploring Complicity in Salim BachiChapter 3: Beyond a Grotesque Aesthetics of the Black Decade in Habib AyyoubChapter 4: Specters of the Black Decade in Kamel Daoud’s Meursault, contre-enquêteChapter 5: Deconstructing Oppositional Criticism in Mustapha Benfodil’s Archéologie du chaos [amoureux]Conclusion: Beyond the Language of Crisis and ConflictBibliographyAbout the Author