Albert Memmi
Tunisian Jewish writer and essayist who migrated to France.
Born in Tunisia under French protectorate, from a Tunisian Jewish mother, Marguerite Sarfati, and a Tunisian-Italian Jewish father, François Memmi, he speaks French and Tunisian-Judeo-Arabic. He claims to be of Berber ancestry. He was educated in French primary schools, and continued on to the Carnot high school in Tunis, the University of Algiers where he studied philosophy, and finally the Sorbonne in Paris. Albert Memmi found himself at the crossroads of three cultures, and based his work on the difficulty of finding a balance between the East and the West.
His best-known nonfiction work is "The Colonizer and the Colonized", about the interdependent relationship of the two groups. It was published in 1957, a time when many national liberation movements were active. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the preface. The work is often read in conjunction with Frantz Fanon's "Les damnés de la Terre" ("The Wretched of the Earth") and "Peau noire, masques blancs" ("Black Skin, White Masks") and Aimé Césaire's "Discourse on Colonialism." In October 2006, Memmi's follow-up to this work, titled "Decolonization and the Decolonized," was published. In this book, Memmi suggests that in the wake of global decolonization, the suffering of former colonies cannot be attributed to the former colonizers, but to the corrupt leaders and governments that control these states.
“Ma langue maternelle fut une langue infirme. Ce patois judéo-arabe de Tunis, truffé de mots hébreux, italiens, français, mal compris des Musulmans, totalement ignoré des autres, m'abondonnais dès que je quittais les ruelles du ghetto. Au-delà des émotions simples, du boire et du manger, dans cet univers politique, technique et intellectuel que je rêvais de conquérir, il perdait tout efficacité. Par bonheur, l'école primaire me fit don du français. C'était un cadeau intimidant, exigeant et difficile à manier; c'était en outre la langue du Colonisateur. Mais précisément, ce superbe instrument, magnifiquement au point, exprimait tout et ouvrait toutes les portes. Le degré de culture, le prestige intellectuel, la réussite sociale se mesurait à l'assurance dans le maniement de la langue du vainqueur. J'acceptai joyeusement le pari et l'enjeu: avec ma mère, qui ne comprenait pas le français,je parlerais la langue de mon enfance; dans la rue, dans ma profession, je serais un Occidental. C'était affaire d'organisation intérieure. Après tout, je ne serais pas le seul homme sur terre à ne pas connaitre une parfaite unité.”
“I was sort of a half-breed of colonization, understanding everyone because I belonged completely to no one.”