History's Place explores nostalgia as one of the defining aspects of the relationship between France and North Africa. Dr. Seth Graebner argues that France's most important colony developed a historical consciousness through literature, and that post-colonial writers revised it while retaining its dominant effect.

History's Place explores nostalgia as one of the defining aspects of the relationship between France and North Africa. Dr. Seth Graebner argues that France's most important colony developed a historical consciousness through literature, and that post-colonial writers revised it while retaining its dominant effect. The North African city became a privileged place in the relationship between literacy and historical discourses in the colony. Graebner analyzes the importance of architecture and urbanism as markers of historical development, as the urban fabric and descriptions of it became signs of difference between metropole and colony. Discussing writers as diverse as Bertrand, Randau, and Kateb, this book examines how the changing Algerian city has remained the locus of a debate colored by various sorts of nostalgia. Graebner demonstrates that nostalgia was symptomatic of historical anxiety generated by colonial conditions, but with literary consequences for mainland France as well. History's Place is a comprehensive and valuable addition to the study of French literature and cultural studies.

Chapter 1 Louis Bertrand and the Building of L'Afrique latine
Chapter 2 Robert Randau and the Algérianistes' Algeria
Chapter 3 The Roman indigène: Anthropological Fiction and its Consequences
Chapter 4 1930: The Cult of Memory
Chapter 5 Broken Idylls: Audisio, Camus, and Roblès
Chapter 6 Kateb Yacine and the Ruins of the Present
Chapter 7 Mohammed in the Métro: Remembering 17 October 1962 in the Novels of Rachid Boudjedra