La guerre de mémoires in Contemporary French Theatre: Remembering the Algerian War of Independence

The term "guerre des mémoires" ("memory battles") has been used by historians in an attempt to describe the debate that arose in French society concerning the "legacy" of colonialism. This debate expressed the efforts of different groups to articulate alternative discourses that challenged the authorized, official narrative of history. Theatre has often hosted these competing narratives. The performance of fragmented personal memories and the presentation of alternative viewpoints of historical events has often been the focus of both playwrights and theatre artists. The Algerian War of Independence, being among the most traumatic chapters in recent French history and involving many different social and ethnic groups that claimed their own version of its narrative, has undoubtedly dominated these "memory battles." As such, it has attracted the interest of many French and francophone playwrights. Experimenting with different dramatic devices and techniques, playwrights such as Richard Demarcy, Eugène Durif, Jean Magnan, Mohamed Kacimi, Mehdi Charef, Aziz Chouaki, among others, present the permutations of memory as these shed light to the "hidden" details of historical events