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Reviews 257 who write in French. In a work of literary sociology, she examines both the sociological context and the literary output and reputation of five Algerian writers: Kateb Yacine (1929–89), Assia Djebar (1936–2015), Rachid Boudjedra (1941–), Kamel Daoud (1970–), and Boualem Sansal (1949–). Roughly contemporaries, these authors have all lived through distinct periods of Algerian history, particularly in regard to FrancoAlgerian relations. Harchi’s overriding thesis is that all of them have been recognized not so much for literary merits, as a French writer would be, but more for their representation of French-language Algerian literature. Harchi discusses the incorporation of Yacine’s work into the repertoire of the Comédie-Française but points out that, as opposed to the French playwrights in the repertoire,Yacine did not have his best work included but rather a collection of his writing that the organizers considered as representative of Algeria. In regard to Djebar, Harchi examines her inclusion in the Académie française—a seemingly revolutionary step for the traditional institution as it accepted not just a female writer but an Algerian female writer at that.And yet Harchi shows how in reality Djebar ended up being criticized by the literary establishment for trying to be herself. When Djebar discussed French colonialism in her speech upon entering the Académie, she was criticized, as if she should have spoken only of literature in an abstract way and been thankful for all that France had given her. Harchi shows also how Boudjedra has transitioned from writing in French to writing in Arabic, and how Daoud has changed literary identities during his shorter career and discovered the politicization of the literary world and its prizes.As for Sansal, in having his novel nearly win the Prix Goncourt in 2015, he learned that the grands prix are tacitly reserved for French authors, or at least that he must be willing to “deterritorialize ” and “de-historicize” his work. Harchi developed this book from her doctoral thèse in sociology of literature. The academic nature of her work is evident, in overly lengthy or back-to-back quotations. She frequently offers brief, but insightful analysis, accompanied by several paragraph-length quotations. This feature is not visually obvious, since the formatting does not use block quotes or otherwise make citations stand out. More paraphrasing and editing could have smoothed over some textual roughness. Nevertheless, the overall coherence and force of the work are undiminished . Harchi has developed an important work of literary sociology that the French literary establishment needs to consider. Bob Jones University (SC) Jeremy Patterson Kaplan, Alice. Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic. Chicago: UP of Chicago, 2016. ISBN 978-0-226-24167-8. Pp. 289. Under the premise that “[n]o author, no matter how powerful or influential, controls the fate of his or her work” (4), Kaplan has undertaken the complex task of telling not Camus’s story but that of L’étranger, the 1942 novel that has gone on to be sold 10.3 million times in France alone and translated into sixty languages worldwide. Described as a prolonged glance over the aspiring author’s young shoulders, Looking for ‘The Stranger’ reads somewhat like the iconic novel itself. There is surely some veiled irony on Kaplan’s part when she begins her study not with the death of Meursault’s mother but rather with the literal end—and, more importantly, beginning—of Camus’s literary career: “Page by page, the flames transformed paper and ink to ash, and more ash”(7). In October 1939, at age twenty-five, Camus destroyed five years’and two trunks’ worth of correspondence in the small stove of his mother’s apartment, jotting down in his notebook the goal to create a body of literature in the coming years. Those having read the most renowned outcome of this ambitious undertaking, L’étranger, surely remember being swept up in the short, seemingly simple sentences that, virtually void of abstraction, place the reader squarely on the fateful yet nonetheless uncertain trajectory of the enigmatic protagonist. Hidden within the recesses of the free-flowing prose are profound questions relative...

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