In Algerian White, Assia Djebar weaves a tapestry of the epic and bloody
ongoing struggle in her country between Islamic fundamentalism and the
post-colonial civil society. Many Algerian writers and intellectuals
have died tragically and violently since the 1956 struggle for
independence. They include three beloved friends of Djebar: Mahfoud
Boucebi, a psychiatrist; M'Hamed Boukhobza, a sociologist; and
Abdelkader Alloula, a dramatist; as well as Albert Camus. In Algerian
White, Djebar finds a way to meld the personal and the political by
describing in intimate detail the final days and hours of these and
other Algerian men and women, many of whom were murdered merely because
they were teachers, or writers, or students. Yet, for Djebar, they
cannot be silenced. They continue to tell stories, smile, and endure
through her defiant pen. Both fiction and memoir, Algerian White
describes with unerring accuracy the lives and deaths of those whose
contributions were cut short, and then probes even deeper into the
meaning of friendship through imagined conversations and ghostly
visitations.