Helen Vassallo is Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Exeter, UK. Her primary research interests are in autobiography, illness narratives, and legacies of conflict.

The Body Beseiged: The Embodiment of Historical Memory in Nina Bouraoui and Leïla Sebbar by Helen Vassallo analyzes the enduring legacy of the Algerian War of Independence by setting in dialogue the work of two contemporary Franco-Algerian writers, Nina Bouraoui and Leïla Sebbar. It uses the concept of "embodied memory" to examine the correlation between history and autobiography, drawing on theories of exile, wounding, embodiment, and remembrance to expose fractures in the Franco-Algerian relationship in an era of commemoration and reconciliation.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Nina Bouraoui and Leïla Sebbar, Embodying the Trauma of "Algeria Lost"
Chapter 1: Embodying a Fractured Identity: Writing on the Divide in Nina Bouraoui's Garçon manqué and La Vie heureuse
Chapter 2: The Embodiment of Environment: Re-thinking Alienation and Re-constructing Identity in Nina Bouraoui's Poupée Bella and Mes Mauvaises Pensées
Chapter 3: The Pain of Algeria Remembered: Vestiges of Algeria in Exile. Leïla Sebbar's Lettres parisiennes: Histoires d'exil and Journal de mes Algéries en France
Chapter 4: A Linguistic Alienation: Finding an Affiliation to Arabic in French. Leïla Sebbar's Je ne parle pas la langue de mon père and L'arabe comme un chant secret
Conclusion: Sites of Embodied Memory: Towards the Possibility of "Algeria Regained"
Bibliography
Index
About the Author