Albert Memmi: retrato de un extranjero. Crisis de identidad y creación literaria

Abstract

Albert Memmi’s first autobiographical novel, called La statue de sel, was published in 1953. Born in a Jewish family, Memmi grows up in Tunisia at a time where this Muslim majority country was still a French protectorate. Growing up in such an exceptional environment causes him a serious identity crisis. At 35, Memmi realizes that only literature can help him understand his place in the world. In this paper, we would like to analyze the feeling of strangeness Albert Memmi grew up with, paying special attention to his books: La statue de sel and the Portrait du colonisé, an essay published in 1957 as a theoretical complement to the novel.

Keywords

• Tunisia
• Camus
• Sartre
• judaism
• colonization
• strangeness