Sherazade by Leïla Sebbar (review)

Sherazade, by Leïla Sebbar—first published in French under the title, Shérazade, 17 ans, brune, frisée, les yeux verts (1982) by Editions Stock—represented, at the time, a groundbreaking publication of fiction. Sebbar’s depiction of Parisian, transnational youth interacting in the urban setting of postcolonial France provides first-hand insight into the marginalized existences of second-generation Maghrebian youth, frequently referred to as Beurs, living in Paris. Sebbar’s portrayal of these often disenfranchised urban youth relegated at times to the periphery of France, yet providing an indubitable challenge to its established center, offers direct insight into the immediacy of this interaction between the legacy of France’s history as a colonizer in North Africa and more mainstream conceptions of French identity. To this day, Sebbar’s novel remains an important reflection on the questions of dual cultural identity and transnationalism that structure debates about the intertwined histories and identities of “Arab” and “Western” spheres, not just in France, but elsewhere as well.

The novel’s themes of encounter and mixing are embodied in its independent and rebellious heroine, Sherazade, who escapes her Algerian immigrant family and travels to the heart of Paris. Her migratory journey finds her encountering a mixture of displaced characters from diverse ethnic heritages and backgrounds: African, Caribbean, Arab, French, bourgeois, and others. In following Sherazade’s encounters with these characters, the reader is introduced to the heroine’s childhood memories of Algeria—her search for her Arab heritage—and is invited to examine the connections drawn to the many representations of French and Algerian culture, to the Algerian War, and to the Orientalist histories underpinning them.

Dorothy Blair’s translation of Sebbar’s novel into English, replete with a glossary of terms and translator’s introduction, represents a valuable addition to the various English translations of Francophone authors that have appeared in recent years. In her introduction to the novel, Blair writes of the “fragmented narrative” and urban Parisian

topography where [Sebbar’s] protagonists act out their marginalized or clandestine existence: The squats and flea markets, the working-class districts of Barbès, Jaurès, Crimée, around the Metro stations and boulevards of those names, where many immigrant families have congregated; the outer suburbs of Vanves … and Bobigny to the north-west—with their bleak high-rise housing estates.¹

This foray into the urban topography of Paris is, as Blair suggests at one point, most likely an unfamiliar journey for the Anglophone reader, who is more likely to recognize Parisian spaces such as the Pompidou Centre and the Forum des Halles, also represented in the novel. Indeed, this connection of traditionally marginalized spaces with recognizable places in Paris represents the larger symbolic importance of Blair’s translation: it connects an important Francophone author’s work, which treats the marginalized and transnational voice, with a larger community. The urban culture of this novel, as Blair points out, “could be London, New York, any large city with an ethnic mix and rootless, alienated youth,” yet the novel also addresses the specific dynamics of second-generation Maghrebian culture and identity in France and the colonial history that is a part of it. The English translation offers the possibility for a much wider readership to experience this very specific story that nonetheless holds universal appeal.

Blair’s translation includes a glossary of cultural terms such as Beur, haïk, and ZUP (a priority urban development area), and throughout the text certain cultural and historical markers related to France and the context of immigration are glossed, enabling readers unfamiliar with the specific cultures in question to follow along easily. Blair’s own five-page introduction provides a succinct yet inviting contextualization of the framework for the narrative that ensues. She explains that although Sebbar’s narrative is fragmented and immediate, evincing the qualities of cinéma vérité technique, it includes no “gratuitous descriptions” of characters but instead “catches their individual voices, especially in the long unpunctuated passages in...