Harkis, Fille de harki, and France, récit d’une enfance as Feminist Bildungsromans

This article focuses on three works by daughters of Harkis: Fille de harki (2003) by Fatima Besnaci-Lancou; France, récit d’une enfance (2006) by Zahia Rahmani; and Harkis (2006), directed by Alain Tasma and co-written by Arnaud Malherbe and Dalila Kerchouche. These works have been studied from the perspective of trauma and memory studies, emphasizing the act of voicing the repressed or ignored past. This article focuses less on the collective and more on the individual, studying the works as bildungsromans, which tell the girls’ trajectories, from the enclosed female space of the camp or isolated village, to becoming published authors.