Description: Recalling how they lived in a single house that was occupied by several Jewish and Muslim families, in the generation before Algerian independence, Joelle Bahloul's informants build up a multi-voice microhistory of a way of life that came to an end in the early l960s. Uprooted and dispersed, these former neighbors constantly refer back to the architecture of the home itself, which, with its internal boundaries and shared spaces, structures their memories. Here, in miniature, is a domestic history of North African Muslims, Jews and Christians living under French colonial rule.
Review Quotes: "This well-written and accessible translation is a required addition to the libraries of students of culture and memory, the ethnography of Jewish life, North Africa, and the identity of immigrants in their adopted countries." Gut Heskell, Religious Studies Review