France, Story of a Childhood

This moving tale of imprisonment & escape, persecution and loss, is narrated by the daughter of an alleged Harki, an Algerian soldier who fought for the French during the Algerian War for Independence. It was the fate of such men to be twice exiled, first in their homeland after the war, & later in France, where fleeing Harki families sought refuge but instead faced contempt, discrimination, and exclusion. 

Zahia Rahmani blends reality and imagination in her writing, offering a fictionalized version of her own family’s struggle. Lara Vergnaud’s beautiful translation from the French perfectly captures the voices & emotions of Rahmani’s childhood in a foreign land. While the author delves deeply into the past, she also indicts present-day France & Algeria. 

From the unique perspective of the daughter of an accused Harki, she examines France’s complex & controversial history with its former colony & offers new insight into the French civil riots of 2005. She makes a stirring plea for understanding between generations & cultures, & especially for an end to the destructive practice of condemning children for their fathers’ actions & beliefs.

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The Algerian-born academic & author Zahia Rahmani is one of France’s leading art historians & writers of fiction, memoirs, & cultural criticism. She is the author of a literary trilogy dedicated to contemporary figures of so-called banished people: Moze (Sabine Wespieser Editions, 2003); “Muslim”: A Novel (Sabine Wespieser Editions, 2005); & France: Story of Childhood (Sabine Wespieser Editions, 2006). Her multi-year international research project at the INHA in Paris & Marseille culminated in Made in Algeria: Genealogy of a Territory, a book & current exhibition of colonial cartography, high & popular visual culture, & contemporary art at the Museum of European & Mediterranean Civilisations (MuCEM), located in Marseille.