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In this thoughtful coming-of-age memoir, a young sociologist reflects on her Moroccan immigrant parents, their journey to France, and how growing up an outsider shaped her identity. Imbued with tenderness for her family and a critical view of the challenges facing French North African immigrants, Kaoutar Harchi’s probing account illustrates the deeply personal effects of political issues. Mixed with happy memories of her childhood home in eastern France are ever-present reminders of the dangers from which her parents sought to shield her. When they transfer her to a private, Catholic middle school—out of fear of Arab boys from their working-class neighborhood—Kaoutar grows increasingly conscious of her differences, and her conflicted sense of self. Notable events in her teens—the passing of a law in 2004 banning religious symbols from public schools; the 2005 deaths of Bouna Traoré and Zyed Benna, which sparked riots against police brutality—underscore the injustice of a society that sees Muslims not as equals but as a problem to solve. With elegant, affecting prose, As We Exist charts Kaoutar’s political and intellectual awakening, which would become the heart and soul of her work as a sociologist and writer.
In this thoughtful coming-of-age memoir, a young sociologist reflects on her Moroccan immigrant parents, their journey to France, and how growing up an outsider shaped her identity. Imbued with tenderness for her family and a critical view of the challenges facing French North African immigrants, Kaoutar Harchi’s probing account illustrates the deeply personal effects of political issues. Mixed with happy memories of her childhood home in eastern France are ever-present reminders of the dangers from which her parents sought to shield her. When they transfer her to a private, Catholic middle school—out of fear of Arab boys from their working-class neighborhood—Kaoutar grows increasingly conscious of her differences, and her conflicted sense of self. Notable events in her teens—the passing of a law in 2004 banning religious symbols from public schools; the 2005 deaths of Bouna Traoré and Zyed Benna, which sparked riots against police brutality—underscore the injustice of a society that sees Muslims not as equals but as a problem to solve. With elegant, affecting prose, As We Exist charts Kaoutar’s political and intellectual awakening, which would become the heart and soul of her work as a sociologist and writer.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Kaoutar Harchi was born in Strasbourg, France, and was a visiting professor at New York University in 2019. She is a sociologist whose work focuses on political relations between speciesism, racism, and sexism in postindustrial societies. As We Exist is her first book to appear in English. Emma Ramadan is an educator and literary translator from French. She is the recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, an NEA Fellowship, and a Fulbright. Her translations include Abdellah Taïa’s A Country for Dying, Kamel Daoud’s Zabor, or The Psalms, and Barbara Molinard’s Panics.
Reviews-
Starred review from January 1, 2023 The daughter of Moroccan immigrants comes of age. Novelist and sociologist Harchi makes her English-language debut with a simultaneously tender and powerful memoir of growing up in eastern France as the only child of Moroccan immigrants. They worked as cleaners, arduous labor for which they felt exploited. Living in a community rife with violence, she was sensitive to her mother's overwhelming fears, "and I began to fear, too." Her parents refused to send her to the local elementary school with other immigrants' children--the Arab boys were "thugs," her mother thought, who ruined girls' reputations. Instead, they got special permission to enroll her in what they believed was a better school in a different part of the city. When she was 10, they sent her to a private Catholic school, where Harchi was subjected to bullying and racist behavior from classmates and teachers. Intent on protecting her parents, she never told them. "School," she writes, "was simultaneously the great unhappiness of my life and the great happiness" of her parents' lives. The oppression she felt at school and the hostility she experienced from French society were mitigated when she was 17 and read The Suffering of the Immigrant, by French Algerian sociologist Abdelmalek Sayad. That book, she writes, gave "meaning, a miraculous meaning, for so long unattainable," to her family's life. Social theory, she came to believe, "had the same power as kisses, as plants and prayers, I mean the power to heal and transform." Encouraged by a professor, Harchi decided to study social science at university. Realizing that education threatened to pull her on a path away from her parents, she felt burdened by a sense of betrayal. Harchi recounts a painful struggle "to morally justify" her decision to pursue graduate studies in Paris and, finally, to be able to move forward, without guilt or sadness, "working only to make a future for us." A graceful, revelatory remembrance.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
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