A review by margaret21
The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter

5.0

I was engaged in this book from start to finish. It's the 70 year story of a family, and begins in a village in Algeria, where Ali has made good and become a figure of some importance in his family and community. The Algerian War of Independence changes all that, and forced to flee to France, they become harkis (French Algerians), despised alike by the French and Algerians who remained in the home country who remained. A life of camps and sub-standard accommodation and work awaits them. It falls to university educated Naima, Ali's granddaughter finally to visit Algeria again.

This is a story about colonisation, immigration, and how to carry on in the face of the loss of your country and cultural identity, and is both a powerful history lesson and a meditation on the difficult questions posed by the cultural upheaval of being forced to leave your home country.