Algerian Memoirs

Alleg Henri

The personal history of journalist Henri Alleg is tied inextricably to the history of the French-Algerian Conflict. Best known for his book "The Question", a first-hand account of his torture by French troops during the Algerian war for independence, Alleg is famous both for having brought the issue of French torture to the public eye and for his passionate work as a writer, a newspaperman, and a communist activist.

Beginning with his arrival in Algiers in 1939, when he fell immediately in love with the vibrant city, to his departure in 1965, after Boumedienne seized power, this is a critical work of history made devastatingly personal. "Algerian Memoirs" recounts his experience under the Vichy regime and such watershed moments in colonial history as the infamous Battle of Algiers. In these pages, he relives the violence and the summary executions, the communist struggle, and his party's strained relations with the National Liberation Front. And, of course, he revisits in stark detail his arrest and torture by the French, his years in prison, and eventual escape to Czechoslovakia.

In the telling of his own story, Alleg explores some of the key events in the history of Europe and North Africa and in the history of the radical press. This is an irreplaceable document of colonialism and its tragic aftermath.

About the Author

Henri Alleg is a French-Algerian journalist and director of the Alger republicain newspaper. He is also the author of several books, including "The Question" and "Red Star and Green Crescent".

Reviews

"Henri Alleg has saved us from despair and shame because he is a victim himself and he has conquered torture... The victim saves us in making us discover, as he discovered himself, that we have the ability and duty to undergo anything" – Jean-Paul Sartre

"[A] noble and in a sense ennobling book, the dominant impression it leaves is one of a progressive and finally an almost total degradation, a degradation both of persons – except for the tortured, the outlawed – and of social institutions. 'The Question' is far more than an account of atrocities, however spectacular" – Nation, on "The Question"

Back to the list of books