Memorializing Shame: Leïla Sebbar’s La Seine Était Rouge in Paris (2012)

Undergraduate: Caroline Kirby

Faculty Advisor: Inger Brodey
Department: Comparative Literature

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In the wake of traumatic events, memorials serve an important role in stimulating dialogue and healing. However, at times it can seem more convenient to forget events that evoke feelings of shame. Absent from school manuals and rarely included in the public discourse, la Guerre d’Algérie (1954 – 1962) remains an open wound in the collective French memory. On the night of October 17, 1961, hundreds of peaceful protesters lost their lives in the streets of Paris after forceful repression from the police. Silence on the part of the press and the state prolonged for decades, leaving a blank in the history books for the next generation’s readers.
Leïla Sebbar, in La Seine Était Rouge, attempts to construct memorials in the space of literature. Her protagonists trace the steps of the October 17 protesters in a desperate attempt to understand their struggle. Building on the work of Mildred Mortimer, I discuss Sebbar’s work as an important literary model for recovering memory. Through architectural markers and documentary filming, the characters begin to engage in dialogue about the tenuous relationship between France and Algeria. Sebbar demonstrates that this dialogue can lead to healing for past, present and future generations. In my own film footage and photographs of these sites, I have attempted to build on this process. The tensions between French and Algerians that continue today are better understood by shedding light on these dark spots in history.