Book publication: Reconstructive Memory Work by Dr Clíona Hensey

Dr Clíona Hensey recently published her first monograph with Liverpool University Press. The book, titled Reconstructive Memory Work: Trauma, Witnessing and the Imagination in Writing by Female Descendants of Harkis, explores literary works by daughters and granddaughters of harkis (Algerian men who served as auxiliary soldiers in the French army during the Algerian War). The works analysed interweave aspects of memory, testimony and imagination to stage dialogues across and between generations, subjectivities and temporalities, within and beyond the context of the Algerian War.

Presenting readings that consider works by prominent authors as well as self-published narratives in their specific generational, gendered and (post)colonial contexts, Reconstructive Memory Work argues that these works challenge the notion that this community is locked in a static or competitive logic of memory. Instead, the book explores how second- and third-generation memory work by female descendants of harkis demands forms of imaginative projection and reconstruction which call into question traditional or unidimensional configurations of identity, trauma and testimony.

The book is part of a new Open Access initiative, Path to Open, which grants participating libraries unlimited access through JSTOR to high-quality monograph publications, and opens this access to the wider public three years after publication.