Trans - national Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World ed. by Hafid Gafaïti, et al (review)

as a “postempire mise en abyme within the hexagonal center” (xvii), changing its demographic landscape, awakening new sensibilities and cultural presences that are transforming France into a country of diversity and newness. Articles focus on laïcité in the French public school system; the growing visibility of Islam in France; the impetus provided by globalization for immigration to Europe; the growing irrelevance of formerly accepted terms, such as “Francophonie;” the appearance of néobarbarismes such as “Francographie” and “Françafriche,” which must be seen as an effort to somehow name the rise of new “multitudes” struggling to become “communities” (48); the African-Americanization of France, that is to say, the growing relevance of the African-American experience in France. Essays in the second part of the volume explore “new kinds of cross-cultural expressions in the arts, in literature, and in æsthetics” (xviii). One particularly intriguing essay examines how classical Chinese poetics lends itself to writing poetry in French; another takes the lesson of George Sand’s social novel and applies it to the Haitian rural novel. The work of Assia Djebar is the focus of another piece, showing how creativity is nurtured by the encounter of diverse sources and origins. The fate of the colonial tirailleurs, popularized by the 2006 film Indigènes, is the subject of the dilemma facing native-born colonial soldiers: so close and yet so far. Empire Lost is an outstanding work of scholarship, rigorous and fascinating, and will surely become obligatory reading for anyone working in the field or interested in exploring the complexity of the French-speaking world. St. Norbert College (WI) Tom Conner GAFAÏTI, HAFID, PATRICIA M. E. LORCIN, and DAVID G. TROYANSKY, eds. Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World. Lincoln: UP of Nebraska, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8032-4428-8. Pp. xxvi + 460. $40. The editors explain that the French myth of a pan-Mediterranean civilization justified colonization, and emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary work to understand its aftermath. Nineteen widely varied chapters follow. In Part I, “Colonialism and Immigration,” Philip Dine emphasizes Camus’s failure to transcend colonialist notions. Keith David Watenpaugh explains how the French who occupied Syria after World War I justified and consolidated their political power by posing as protectors of Christians in the Orient. The Scouting Movement served an important role in transnational integration, including the speaking of French. Upon decolonization, many Francophone Syrians emigrated to Quebec or France. Elisa Camiscioli unsurprisingly discovers pervasive racist presuppositions in official French discourse. After 1850, racist and nationalist discourses fused, as both France and the U.S. tried to maintain a white polity through selective immigration and the stigmatization of immigrants of color. In Part II, “Immigrant Spaces and Identities,” Neil MacMaster shows how collectively constructed Algerian bidonvilles in France tried to preserve family privacy through a carefully gradated succession from public to intimate space. The French destroyed Algerian communitarian space by forcing immigrants out of their shantytowns into HLM, producing social problems that they now decry. Todd Shepard richly details French ingratitude toward the harkis. De Gaulle disregarded the Evian Accords, treating harkis as refugees rather than repatriates. The Secretary of 184 FRENCH REVIEW 84.1 State for Algerian affairs and numerous military officers were stymied in their efforts to protect them. It is a shameful story. Alain Gabon discusses Kassovitz’s films Métisse and La Haine, in a nobly-intended, well-informed, and poorly-written essay. Kassovitz used unknown Jewish and “minority” actors to show that metropolitan France was no longer primarily European in ethnicity. In Part III, “Writing Algerian Identities,” Robert Aldrich discusses Jean Sénac, a pied-noir supporter of Algerian independence who was murdered in 1973. Agar Mendousse offers a capable if predictable feminist reading of several works by Leïla Sebbar. Mary McCullough characterizes Sebbar in more original ways, as a writer who considers herself not a beur, but as a French Magic Realist. She revealingly analyzes Sebbar’s style, its effects, and its intentions. Part IV treats identity issues affecting North African Jews. Sarah Sussman explains how, unlike the Ashkenazi who for centuries had shaped Jewish identity in France, Sephardic groups came from several distinct backgrounds. Despite the...