Rehearsing October 17, 1961: The Role of Fiction in Remembering the Battle of Paris

In a 1994 interview, historian Benjamin Stora bemoaned the lack of official recognition of the Algerian War in France. This article focuses on how creative works of fiction that evoke the Paris massacre of peaceful Algerian demonstrators on October 17, 1961, have attracted unprecedented attention to the larger conflict and prompted acts of remembrance. It draws from a number of literary and cinematographic texts that rehearse the events of that infamous autumn night in the French capital, ranging from Abdelkader Djemaï’s Gare du Nord and Faïza Guène’s Kiffe-kiffe demain to Michael Haneke’s Caché and Alain Tasma’s Nuit noire, showing how they provide fresh angles of interpretation that have contributed to opening up a new chapter in our memory of the Algerian War.