The Colonizer and the Colonized - Softcover

Memmi, Albert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0285643398 ISBN 13: 9780285643390

Publisher: Souvenir Press, 2016

Synopsis

Re-issued in the Independent Voices series, with Martin Luther King's Stride Toward Freedom among others, The Colonizer and the Colonized is a strikingly topical book about the enduring legacy, political as much as psychological, of colonisation throughout the world. Written in 1957, when North African independence movements were gaining momentum, Memmi depicts colonialism as a disease of the European but crucially he demonstrates that colonialism destroys both the colonizer and the colonized.
It speaks to the Third World experience as well as European countries, such as Britain and France, who are struggling with the aftermath of their imperial pasts. In revealing the mechanisms of colonial oppression it also highlights the origins of all oppressions of one group by another.
Memmi's penetrating insights into the colonial inheritance, and attempts to resist colonisation, remain as relevant today. The Colonizer and the Colonized is one of the great works of twentieth-century political thought and widely studied in universities.
With introductions by two of the greatest writers of the twentieth-century: Nadine Gordimer, the South African novelist and Nobel laureate, and Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the central figures in European culture.
Written in 1957, when North African independence movements were gaining momentum, Memmi depicts colonialism as a disease of the European but crucially he demonstrates that colonialism destroys both the colonizer and the colonized. Memmi's penetrating insights into the colonial inheritance, and attempts to resist colonisation, remain as relevant today.

About this title

About the Author

Albert Memmi was born in 1920 in Tunisia, when it was a French protectorate. He grew up speaking Tunisia-Judeo-Arabic and French, and went on to be educated at the University of Algiers and the Sorbonne in Paris. During the Second World War, he was imprisoned in a forced labour camp which he later escaped from. A supporter of Tunisian independence in the post war, he left the country for France after independence citing increasing marginalisation due both to his French education and Jewish identity. He published several widely acclaimed novels as well as major works on racism and Judaism. He died in France in 2020.

Edition details

• Publisher: Souvenir Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0285643398
• ISBN 13: 9780285643390
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208