Performing the Pied-Noir Family

Performing the Pied-Noir Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen sheds new light on the memory community of the pieds-noir from the Algerian War (1954-1962) as it continues to resonate in France, where the subject was initially repressed in the collective psyche. Aoife Connolly draws on theories of performativity to explore autobiographical and fictional narratives by the settlers in over thirty canonical and non-canonical works of literature and film produced from the colony’s imminent demise up to the present day. Connolly focuses on renewed attachment to the family in exile to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of settler masculinity, femininity, childhood, and adolescence and to uncover neglected representations, including homosexual and Jewish voices. Connolly argues that findings on the construction of a post-independence identity and collective memory have broader implications for communities affected by colonization and migration. Scholars of literature, film, Francophone studies, and film studies will find this book particularly useful.

“Using the family as a prism through which to view constructions of identity by pied-noir authors, Connolly's wide-ranging analysis makes an intellectually rigorous contribution to the academic literature on this important postcolonial community. This thoughtful and historically contextualised deconstruction of narratives via the categories of masculinity, femininity and youth adds welcome nuance to our understanding of a community that is frequently essentialized.”

In Performing the Pied-Noir Family, Aoife Connolly has produced an important contribution to the growing scholarship focused on the cultural production of the Français d’Algérie, better known since 1962 as the pieds-noirs. This book remains an important contribution to the field that will be welcomed by students and scholars of French and Mediterranean (post-)colonial studies.

Modern and Contemporary France

Performing the Pied-Noir Family is the first book to explore how gender roles are modeled by French-Algerian settler characters in both literature and film relating to colonial Algeria.... Her work fills an important gap and allows us to more clearly see the social expectations imposed within families and between individuals in, and after, colonial Algeria.

H-France Review

Aoife Connolly shows how self-representations of the settler populations who fled to France when Algeria became independent have changed over time, with the topos of hypermasculinity foregrounded during the colonial period tempered by a more complex range of gender roles. She shines valuable new light on these developments by examining a large body of works by familiar and lesser known writers and filmmakers. Twists and turns since independence are brought skilfully into focus by mapping them onto ongoing revisions in the reputation of colonial Algeria’s most famous writer, Albert Camus.

-- Alec G. Hargreaves, Emeritus Winthrop-King Professor of transcultural French studies, Florida State University

Using the family as a prism through which to view constructions of identity by pied-noir authors, Connolly’s wide-ranging analysis makes an intellectually rigorous contribution to the academic literature on this important postcolonial community. This thoughtful and historically contextualised deconstruction of narratives via the categories of masculinity, femininity and youth adds welcome nuance to our understanding of a community that is frequently essentialized.

-- Claire Eldridge, associate professor of modern history, University of Leeds

In short, this monograph brings attention to a field of research and a corpus of texts that merit more scholarly attention regarding the relationships between settler narratives and contemporary attitudes about migration and France’s colonial past.

Studies In Twentieth Century Literature

Aoife Connolly’s book, through an original and very relevant prism, examines the cultural production of a group whose identity was long essentialized. The author, who draws on a large corpus of fictional and autobiographical texts as well as films, rigorously demonstrates the different ways in which the paradigm of the family is used in these works to construct a specific memory and identity, in response to the trauma of exile.

French Studies

Readers will learn a lot from Aoife Connolly’s study of the relatively little-known literature of repatriates of European origin in the wake of the Algerian War… Connolly succeeds in demonstrating the more diverse perspectives of certain pied-noir texts.

Nouvelles Études Francophones

Aoife Connolly is lecturer of French studies at Technological University Dublin.

Performing the Pied-Noir Family: Constructing Narratives of Settler Memory and Identity in Literature and On-Screen sheds new light on the memory community of the pieds-noir from the Algerian War (1954-1962) as it continues to resonate in France, where the subject was initially repressed in the collective psyche. Aoife Connolly draws on theories of performativity to explore autobiographical and fictional narratives by the settlers in over thirty canonical and non-canonical works of literature and film produced from the colony's imminent demise up to the present day. Connolly focuses on renewed attachment to the family in exile to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of settler masculinity, femininity, childhood, and adolescence and to uncover neglected representations, including homosexual and Jewish voices. Connolly argues that findings on the construction of a post-independence identity and collective memory have broader implications for communities affected by colonization and migration. Scholars of literature, film, Francophone studies, and film studies will find this book particularly useful.

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