Life Writing and Transcultural Youth in Contemporary France: Azouz Begag, Maryam Madjidi, and Laura Alcoba

This book analyses transcultural works of life writing relating to youth and childhood by Azouz Begag, Maryam Madjidi, and Laura Alcoba, of Algerian, Iranian, and Argentinian heritage respectively. With a strong focus on societal issues in France from the turn of the millennium to early 2024, including the intersections between the postcolonial and the transcultural, it analyses the authors’ relationship with France and the ＂home＂ country, and the problematic pull of return. Each author uses life writing in a transpersonal manner, and expresses multiple cultural belongings. Begag displays playful yet compulsive self-reinvention, Madjidi uses autofiction in a search for authenticity, and Alcoba’s approach highlights the difficulties of dealing with traumatic personal and national memory. A substantial overview is given of each author’s oeuvre, along with societal context for the country of origin or descent, followed by close textual analysis. This is a companion volume to Dervila Cooke’s 2024 monograph on Québec.

Dervila Cooke teaches in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland. She is the author of Indigenous and Transcultural Narratives in Québec (2023), Present Pasts: Patrick Modiano’s (Auto) Biographical Fictions (2005) and editor of New Work on Immigration and Identity in Contemporary France, Québec, and Ireland (2016), and of Modiano et l’image (2012).