Moi, Nadia, femme d'un émir du GIA by Baya Gacemi and: I, Nadia, Wife of a Terrorist by Baya Gacemi (review)

Book Reviews147 FRANCOPHONE LITERATURES AND CULTURES Gacemi, Baya. Moi, Nadia, femme d'un émir du GIA. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998. ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-2204-5 (Cloth). Gacemi, Baya. /, Nadia, Wife of a Terrorist. Trans. Paul Côté and Constantina Mitchell. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Pp [i]xvii ; 157. ISBN 0-8032-7124-7. $24.95 (Paper). Baya Gacemi's book offers a written account of a young Algerian woman's personal experiences: first the lure of adventure, power, prestige, and material benefit that persuaded her to marry a local "bad boy" turned terrorist; then the gradual disillusionment when servitude, privation, isolation and hopelessness only intensified as her terrorist affiliation continued. Gacemi's first person narrative is based on a series oftaped interviews with the young woman who, by the time of the interviews, had finally abandoned her abusive husband, renounced the ideology that he represented, and had sought refuge and a new beginning at a women's shelter. The narrative begins with Nadia's announcement of her husband's violent and gruesome death at the hands of his enemies. She is not surprised or saddened by his death. Rather, her first concern is to update the family record book, a legally binding document, with that notation in order to change her marital status and be "freed from the chains" (5) linking her to a man who, even in death, made her life difficult. The reader learns details of their relationship and activities during acquaintance and courtship, their wedding, and then the experience oftheir married life for four years. The role of Islam and Islamic law, particularly as it imposes governance on women's lives, resonates throughout the account. The narrative style recalls that of /, Rigoberta Menchu, a narrative also transcribed from taped interviews by Venezuelan-French author and psychologist Elizabeth Burgos Debray and later translated into English. Time sequence and duration are secondary to events, descriptions, and expressions of personal sentiment or opinion. Incidents and persons evoke associations and digressions. At times the narrator seems simply to repeat events, but the reality for her was that these miserable and demoralizing scenes were often repeated. One result of Nadia's disillusionment is a healthy cynicism and a bitingly critical tone as she recalls past experiences and people. She has learned to be brutal, at least with her words. Of the people in the towns who essentially allowed terrorists to take control of the country she says, "the villagers were cowards. That's how terror was able to take hold there" (74). Ofher husband she notes, "Here he was leaving me to face the military and the police on my own and he didn't have a single word of concern for me. All he could think about was the money" (103). In the end she realizes that she is mostly angry with herself "for having married a man incapable of offering me the tranquility and protections I was seeking" (129). All the hardships have caused her to doubt everything, even religion. Nadia's narrative ends with her description of her new 1 48Women in French Studies life with a host family who has accepted her in their home. She does the housework for them in exchange for room and board. She lives comfortably in their house where, for the first time in her life, she has her own room. " My only desire now," she states, "is to be able to get my son back one day" (151). She had to leave him with her mother. In her introduction, Baya Gacemi explains that she met Nadia while doing a news story on women victimized by terrorism. She makes clear as well her sincere desire to inform people, both in Algeria and in the world beyond, by presenting specifics about destructive factional activities. She also reiterates her promise to Nadia to ensure that actual people and places are protected by the consistent use of fictitious names. In the book's foreword, an informative essay by Fanny Calonna contextualizes Nadia's account by pointing out pertinent facts and figures with regard to the violent struggle in Algeria in the decade between 1992 and 2002. She focuses particularly on the...