Post/Past Violence: The Aftermath of Revolutions and Literature as Reconciliation

Abstract

In this article I argue that Maïssa Bey’s Pierre Sang Papier ou Cendre (2008) and Puisque mon cœur est mort (2010) highlight Bey’s hesitation to support the use of violence in response to violence. Whereas a figure like Frantz Fanon supports anticolonial violence as the near inevitable reply to colonial atrocity, Bey’s textual representations of brutality during the Algerian War and especially the Algerian Civil War are much more focused on illustrating the dangers of retaliatory violence and demonstrating the power of literature as a mode of healing and reconciliation. I will thus examine how these novels propose reconciliation through fiction—and especially reconciliatory writing in contrast to further violence—in the aftermath of revolution and martial cruelty more generally.

Keywords:

• Violence
• revolution
• reconciliation
• Maïssa Bey
• Fanon
• Algeria

Notes

1 Strangely enough, in this text and especially when discussing the pharmakon, Mbembe does not reference Derrida, though his reflection, building on Fanon, is strongly Derridean, and it is Derrida, namely in “La Pharmacie de Platon” (La Dissémination 1972), who analyzes the notion of the pharmakon (pharmakos) and its role as remedy, poison, as well as scapegoat. Derrida is not a major interlocuter in Mbembe’s work, and is referenced only sporadically. See, for instance, Chapter 1, “Of Commandement,” of On the Postcolony when Mbembe analyzes the three manifestations of violence of colonial sovereignty and notes: “I draw here on comments by J. Derrida dealing with a different issue. See his Force de loi […]” (58).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brigitte Stepanov

Brigitte Stepanov is pursuing a Ph.D. in French Studies at Brown University. Her dissertation focuses on representations of cruelty, monstrosity, and atrocity more generally in contemporary Francophone literature from Africa and tackles defining what it means to be human in times of violence.