Review by Colin Credle

Inspired by real events, author Swann Meralli recounts the stories of various women involved in the Algerian War for Independence from France (1954 – 1962). Our central character Beatrice’s father served in the French Army in Algeria, but never speaks about it, despite Beatrice’s efforts to learn more. Her mother suggests Beatrice speak with her friend Saida, who fled Algeria as a child. Saida’s father initially supported the resistance in Algeria, but there were conflicting factions. When Saida’s Uncle’s corpse was found beheaded and dumped in a ditch, her father joined the French as a “harki”; a term describing local Algerians who supported the French Army. Eventually it became known that Saida’s father was collaborating, and their family had to suddenly flee at night to France, leaving everything they owned behind.

Saida tells Beatrice about living in refugee camps in France, where they were berated by bigotry and suffered deprivation for years. After meeting Saida, Beatrice travels to Algeria, where she meets Djamila who joined the FLN (National Liberation Front) only to become disillusioned by how they treated women. Djamila introduces Beatrice to Bernadette, a French Algerian woman who stayed in Algeria, known as a “pied-noir” or “black foot.” Each woman’s experience is unique, complicated and presents remarkable situations requiring enormous courage, decisiveness and luck to survive. Author Meralli deftly ties the stories together in an alluring and revealing, cohesive narrative.

Artist Zac Deloupy’s style lends itself well to this journey of discovery. A clear-line style is well presented, depicting the varied terrains, cities and countries in their distinctive cultural settings, although the jarring acts of courage, the risks taken by the women and the random acts of violence carry the book almost on their own. There are sufficient flashbacks that the colouring ends up being rather drab, but the sepia tones create a sense of nostalgia and serve the subject matter with the gravity it deserves.

The Algerian War of Independence was clearly a mess, with many conflicting interests and unforeseen consequences. This is an admirable effort to reveal a sensitive subject that everyone seems to want to hide with accessible humanity.