Aïda Amara

Aïda Amara's novel "Avec ma tête d'arabe" tells the story of a young French-Algerian journalist whose identity is shattered by the Paris terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015. Starting with this traumatic event, the text unfolds a multifaceted exploration of family and colonial history, stretching from the narrator's Parisian childhood back to Kabylia during the Algerian War of Independence. This review demonstrates that the novel presents identity not as a stable entity, but as a fragile and ongoing process of reconstruction: the trauma destroys her previous self-assurance and forces the narrator to re-examine her origins, her family traditions, and her position between France and Algeria. The analysis focuses on the sophisticated interweaving of the three timelines, the female genealogy of resistance, the significance of language and wit as forms of self-assertion, and the function of humor as a strategy against powerlessness and fear. Thus, “Avec ma tête d'arabe” appears as a novel that is both personal and political, combining individual injury with postcolonial memory and understanding writing itself as an act of reclaiming a polyphonic, contradictory, yet capable self.