Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria (review)

L'Esprit Créateur have yielded not only a more balanced analysis of literary production in the Maghreb, but a more accurate map of the colonial encounter between French settlers and Algerian people. Au Behdad UCLA James LeSueur. Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the Decolonization of Algeria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Pp. 342. In his stellar scholarly work, Uncivil War, James LeSueur endeavours to trace die intricate role of intellectuals during the French-Algerian War. Providing a rich historical backdrop, including previously unpublished private archives and personal interviews with key figures, die author presents a fresh, engaging study of Algerian and French intellectuals during the bloody period of decolonisation. Indeed, LeSueur successfully draws die reader into the theoretical fray with his appealing and accessible arguments. LeSueur successfully navigates the tangled web of French and Algerian voices and gives a succinct , yet detailed account of the internal war that took place in European intellectual circles, where battles were fought on paper and friendships broken over the controversial Algerian affair. As die war raged on in Algeria, intellectual figures fought to formulate their own views on the terrifying acts of terrorism displayed by both sides. While the French intellectuals struggled to maintain a semblance of French integrity in the face of racist colonial policy, flieir Algerian counterparts were forced to examine their own conflicting feelings inspired by a hybrid Franco-Algerian identity. The real jewel of the work is the superbly written chapter entitled "The Unbearable Solitude of Being: the Question of Albert Camus." While high-profile figures such as Jacques Soustelle, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Mouloud Feraoun publicly debated the Algerian question , Albert Camus remained suspiciously taciturn. LeSueur attempts to explain the renowned writer's baffling and enigmatic position vis-à -vis die disheartening situation in Algeria and sheds considerable light upon Camus's disconcerting silence. Heavily criticized by his peers, Camus cut a paradoxical political figure, a man who loudly protested the Soviet occupation of Hungary while turning a seemingly blind eye to the injustices in Algeria. LeSueur dissects and clarifies the complicated internal struggle that confronted Camus and reveals the pied noir writer's interesting posthumous role in post-colonial politics. After leading us through the chaos of decolonisation and die psychological aftermath of die war, Uncivil War leaves us with a conclusion that seems to introduce a whole new set of problematics : that of post-colonial identity. Undoubtedly, LeSueur concludes, "the story of the French-Algerian War continues to reverberate in Algeria, in the memory and imaginations of French and Algerian intellectuals alike. Perhaps it will be a never-ending story" (260). Anne-Marie Alexander Université Blaise Pascal Keith L. Walker. Countermodernism and Francophone Literary Culture: The Game of Slipknot. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1999. Pp. χ + 300. In this wide-ranging book, Keith Walker brings together a number of discourses whose intersecting themes of countermodernism, postcolonialism, and cultural identity mark die boundaries of Francophone literary production. Walker examines works—including poetry, prose, drama, and political treatises—by authors from Martinique, French Guyana, Senegal, Morocco, and Haiti, analyzing the terms and conditions of the struggle for cultural and discursive liberation mese writers have waged wimin the confines of die French language and French (post)colonial politics. Walker attempts to bring diese works, cultures, histories, and perspectives together under die 114 Winter 2001 ...