Hoarding Memory: Covering the Wounds of the Algerian War

Hoarding Memory looks at the ways the stories of the Algerian War (1954-62) have proliferated among the former French citizens of Algeria. By engaging hoarding as a model, Amy L. Hubbell demonstrates the simultaneously productive and destructive nature of clinging to memory. These memories present massive amounts of material, akin to the stored objects in a hoarder’s house. Through analysis of fiction, autobiography, art, and history that extensively use collecting, layering, and repetition to address painful war memories, Hubbell shows trauma can be hidden within its own representation.

Hoarding Memory dedicates chapters to specific authors and artists who use this hoarding technique: Marie Cardinal, Leila Sebbar, and Benjamin Stora in writing and Nicole Guiraud and Patrick Altes in art. All were born in Algeria during colonial French rule but in vastly different contexts; each suffered personal or inherited trauma from racism, physical or psychological abuse, terrorist or other violent acts of war, and exile in France. Zineb Sedira’s artwork is also included as an example of traumatic memory inherited from her parents.

Ultimately this book shows how traumatic experience can be conveyed in a seemingly open account that is compounded and compacted by the volume of words, images, and other memorial debris that testify to the pain.