Albert Memmi

Albert Memmi (Arabic: ألبرت ميمي‎‎; born December 15, 1920) is a French writer and essayist of Tunisian-Jewish origin.

Biography

Born in Tunis, in the French Tunisia, to a Tunisian Jewish mother, Marguerite Sarfati, and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, François Memmi, he speaks French and Tunisian-Judeo-Arabic. He claims to be of Berber ancestry. He was educated in French primary schools, and continued on to the Carnot high school in Tunis, the University of Algiers where he studied philosophy, and finally the Sorbonne in Paris. Albert Memmi found himself at the crossroads of three cultures, and based his work on the difficulty of finding a balance between the East and the West.^[1]

Parallel with his literary work, he pursued a career as a teacher; first as a teacher at the Carnot high school in Tunis (1953) and later in France (where he remained after Tunisian independence) at the Practical School of Higher Studies, at the HEC High School in Paris and at the University of Nanterre (1970).

Although he supported the independence movement in Tunisia, he was not able to find a place in the new Muslim state.

His well-regarded first novel, La statue de sel (translated as The Pillar of Salt), was published in 1953 with a preface by Albert Camus and was awarded the Fénéon Prize in 1954. His other novels include Agar (translated as Strangers), Le Scorpion (The Scorpion), and Le Desert (The Desert).

His best-known nonfiction work is The Colonizer and the Colonized, about the interdependent relationship of the two groups. It was published in 1957, a time when many national liberation movements were active. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the preface. The work is often read in conjunction with Frantz Fanon's Les damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth) and Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) and Aimé Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism. In October 2006, Memmi's follow-up to this work, entitled Decolonization and the Decolonized, was published. In this book, Memmi suggests that in the wake of global decolonization, the suffering of former colonies cannot be attributed to the former colonizers, but to the corrupt leaders and governments that control these states.

Memmi's related sociological works include Dominated Man, Dependence, and Racism.

Sean P. Hier, in a review of Memmi's Racism, calls it "well-written and autobiographically informed." He writes that Memmi's main claim is that racism is a "'lived experience' arising within human situations which only secondarily become 'social experiences.' According to Hier, Memmi writes that racism is "endemic to collective human existence."^[2]

Memmi has also written extensively on Judaism, including Portrait of a Jew, Liberation of the Jew and Jews and Arabs.

He is also known for the "Anthology of Maghrebian literature" (written in collaboration) published in 1965 (vol. 1) and 1969 (vol. 2).

Scholar Judith Roumani reviews Memmi's fictional works, asserting that the Tunisian writer's work "reveals the same philosophical evolution over time from his original viewpoints to less radical but perhaps more realistic positions." She concludes that "his latest fiction is certainly more innovative and different than his earlier work."^[3]

In 1995, Memmi said of his own work: "All of my work has been in sum an inventory of my attachments; all of my work has been, it should be understood, a constant revolt against my attachments; all of my work, for certain, has been an attempt at...reconciliation between the different parts of myself."

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Bibliography

French

• A contre-courants. Paris: Nouvel Objet, c1993. ISBN 2-84085-002-8
• Ah, quel bonheurécédé de L’exercice du bonheur. Paris: Arléa : Diffusion Seuil, c1995. ISBN 2-86959-250-7
• Albert Memmi : un entretien avec Robert Davies suivi de Itinéraire de l’expérience vécue à la théorie de la domination. Montréal: Éditions L’Étincelle : distributeur, Réédition Québec, c1975.
• Bonheurs : 52 semaines. Paris: Arléa, c1992. ISBN 2-86959-142-X
• Le buveur et l’amoureux : le prix de la dépendance. Paris: Arléa : Diffusion Seuil, c1998. ISBN 2-86959-391-0
• Ce que je crois. Paris: B. Grasset, c1985. ISBN 2-246-31171-3
• La dépendance : esquisse pour un portrait du dépendant. [Paris]: Gallimard, c1979.
• Le désert : ou, La vie et les aventures de Jubair Ouali El-Mammi. [Paris]: Gallimard, c1977.
• Dictionnaire critique à l’usage des incrédules. Paris: Kiron/Editions du Félin, c2002. ISBN 2-86645-430-8
• L’écriture colorée, ou, Je vous aime en rouge : essai sur une dimension nouvelle de l’écriture, la couleur. Paris: Périple : Distribution Distique, c1986. ISBN 2-904549-03-X
• L’Homme dominé. [Paris]: Gallimard, 1968.
• L’Homme dominé; le Noir, le colonisé, le prolétaire, le Juif, la femme, le domestique, le racisme. Nouvelle éd. Paris: Payot, 1973. ISBN 2-228-32230-X
• L’individu face à ses dépendances. Paris: Vuibert, c2005. ISBN 2-7117-6181-9
• Le juif et l’autre. [Etrepilly]: C. de Bartillat, c1995. ISBN 2-84100-025-7
• Juifs et Arabes. [Paris]: Gallimard, [1974].
• Le nomade immobile : récit. [Paris]: Arléa, c2000. ISBN 2-86959-521-2
• Le personnage de Jeha dans la littérature orale des Arabes et des Juifs. [Jerusalem]: Institute of Asian and African Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, [1974?]
• Le pharaon : roman. Paris: Julliard, c1988. ISBN 2-260-00535-7
• Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du colonisateur ... Préface de Jean-Paul Sartre. Paris: Payot, 1973.
• Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du colonisateur; et d’une préf. de Jean-Paul Sartre. Suivi de Les Canadiens francais sont-ils des colonisés? Ed. rev. et corr. par l’auteur. Montréal: L’Etincelle, 1972. ISBN 0-88515-018-X
• Portrait du colonisé, précédé de portrait du colonisateur : et d’une préface de Jean-Paul Sartre. [Paris]: Gallimard, c1985. ISBN 2-07-070550-1
• Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres. Paris: Gallimard, c2004. ISBN 2-07-077110-5
• Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres. Ed. corr. et augm. d’une postface. Paris: Gallimard, c2004. ISBN 2-07-077377-9
• Portrait d’un Juif. [Paris]: Gallimard, 1962-1966.
• Le racisme : description, définition, traitement. [Paris]: Gallimard, c1982. ISBN 2-07-035461-X
• Le Scorpion, ou, La confession imaginaire. [Paris]: Gallimard, 1969.
• La statue de sel, roman. [Paris]: Correa [1953].
• La statue de sel. Préf. d’Albert Camus. Éd. revue et corr. [Paris]: Gallimard [1966].
• Térésa et autres femmes: récits. Paris: Félin, c2004. ISBN 2-86645-568-1
• La terre intérieure: entretiens avec Victor Malka. [Paris]: Gallimard, c1976.

English

• The Colonizer and the Colonized. Introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre; afterword by Susan Gilson Miller; translated by Howard Greenfeld. Expanded ed. Boston: Beacon Press, c1991. ISBN 0-8070-0301-8
• Decolonization and the Decolonized. Translated by Robert Bononno. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c2006. ISBN 0-8166-4734-8
• Dependence: A Sketch for a Portrait. New York: Orion Press [1968].
• Jews and Arabs. Translated from the French by Eleanor Levieux. Chicago: J. P. O’Hara, c1975. ISBN 0-87955-327-8 ISBN 0879553286
• The Liberation of the Jew. Translated from the French by Judy Hyun. New York: Orion Press [1966].
• The Pillar of Salt. Translated by Edouard Roditi. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8070-8327-5
• The Pillar of Salt. Chicago: J. P. O’Hara, [1975] c1955. ISBN 0-87955-907-1
• Portrait of a Jew. Translated from the French by Elisabeth Abbott. New York: Orion Press [1962]
• Racism. Translated and with an introduction by Steve Martinot. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c2000. ISBN 0-8166-3164-6
• The Scorpion, or, The Imaginary Confession. Translated from the French by Eleanor Levieux. New York: Grossman, 1971. 0670622710
• Strangers. Translated from the French by Brian Rhys. New York: Orion Press [1960]

Hebrew

• Yehudim Ve-Arvim, translated by Aharon Amir, Sifriyat Hapo'alim, [1975]
• Neziv Hamelach, translated by Yosef Luz, Sifria La'am- Am Oved}, [1960]

External links

• Works by or about Albert Memmi at Internet Archive
• An article on Memmi's work

Notes