The Seine Was Red: Paris, October 1961

by Le la Sebbar, Mildred Mortimer

Overview

Leïla Sebbar's novel recounts an event in French history that has been hidden for many years. Toward the end of the Algerian war, the FLN, an Algerian nationalist party, organized a demonstration in Paris to oppose a curfew imposed upon Algerians in France. About 30,000 Algerians gathered peacefully, but the protest was brutally suppressed by the Paris police. Between 50 and 200 Algerians were killed and their bodies were thrown into the Seine. This incident provides the background for a more intimate look into the history of violence between France and Algeria. Following three young protagonists—one French, one Algerian, and one French national of Algerian descent—Sebbar takes readers on a journey of discovery and comprehension. Mildred Mortimer's impressive translation conveys the power of Sebbar's words in English and allows English-speaking readers an opportunity to understand the complex relationship between past and present, metropole and colony, immigrant and citizen, that lies at the heart of this acclaimed novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253220233
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	09/03/2008
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Leïla Sebbar is one of the French-speaking world's most important writers. Her novels include Shérazade, Marguerite, La jeune fille au balcon, and Soldats. She was born in Algeria and lives in Paris, France.

Mildred Mortimer is Professor of French at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She has translated Leïla Sebbar's Le Silence des Rives/Silence on the Shores and has written several works on North African literature, including Maghrebian Mosaic: A Literature in Transition and Journeys through the French African Novel. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Unearthing Hidden History by Mildred Mortimer

Nanterre. Amel. October 1996
Paris
Flora and Mina
Louis. Rue de La Santé
Nanterre. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 1961
The Owner of the Atlas Café
Nanterre. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 1961
Papon's Harki
Flora
Louis
Défense. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 1961
The Algerian Rescued from the Water
République. Amel and Omer
October 1961
The Owner of the Goutte d'Or Café. Barbès
Flora
Louis
Flora
Louis
Place de la Concorde. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 1961
The French Lover
Louis
Bonne Nouvelle. Amel and Omer
October 30, 1961
The French Student
Flora
Saint-Michel. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 17, 1961
The Bookseller of Rue Saint-Séverin
Louis
Orly. Amel and Omer
The Mother
October 1961
The Cop at Clichy
Louis
Alexandria. Amel and Omer. Louis

Notes
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

"This novel raises profound and timely questions about the nature of democracy, Muslim-Western relations, memory, history, and forgetting. Mildred Mortimer's masterful translation is a pleasure to read."

Anne Donadey

"This novel raises profound and timely questions about the nature of democracy, Muslim-Western relations, memory, history, and forgetting. Mildred Mortimer's masterful translation is a pleasure to read."

Anne Donadey]]>

This novel raises profound and timely questions about the nature of democracy, Muslim-Western relations, memory, history, and forgetting. Mildred Mortimer's masterful translation is a pleasure to read.

author of Recasting Postcolonialism - Anne Donadey

This novel raises profound and timely questions about the nature of democracy, Muslim-Western relations, memory, history, and forgetting. Mildred Mortimer's masterful translation is a pleasure to read.

Editorial Reviews

"This novel raises profound and timely questions about the nature of democracy, Muslim-Western relations, memory, history, and forgetting. Mildred Mortimer's masterful translation is a pleasure to read."—Anne Donadey, author of Recasting Postcolonialism

From the Publisher

First published in France in 1999, Sebbar's political novel is a significant, self-conscious attempt to shatter the official silence surrounding the October 17, 1961, Algerian demonstration in Paris that ended in bloodshed. Sebbar (Soldats) sets her novel in contemporary Paris among several Algerian-French families whose elders lived through the events of that fateful day, when violence broke out and demonstrators were beaten, thrown into the Seine, imprisoned (and in some cases deported) by the police. Amel, a young Nanterre University student, is the granddaughter of Algerian immigrants who spent a stretch in La Santé prison for subversive acts. When the curious teenager finally learns the truth about her grandparents, it's in a documentary film made by her childhood friend, Louis, about La Santé's role in the Algerian war for independence. Inspired, Amel and a new acquaintance, an Algerian newspaper correspondent, undertake a pilgrimage to various sites in Paris that played important parts in the fight for independence . While Sebbar's method is sketchy and pointed, the cumulative effect of Amel's quest to unearth the truth proves moving and cathartic. (Nov.)

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