Poets and the Algerian War

An anthology compiling the work of the French Poets who opposed the Algerian War. These poets are important, not only as historical witnesses to a terrible war. They remind us of the possibilities and of the responsibilities of poetry in our own times.  In 1960 many of France’s leading writers and intellectuals – including Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul

Sartre, André Breton, Pierre Boulez, François Truffaut and Marguerite Duras – signed

Le Manifeste des 121, calling on the French government to renounce the use of torture in Algeria. Many writers found themselves on the front-line. This anthology features some of the French poets who opposed the war, including Louis Aragon, Jacques Gaucheron and Madeleine Riffaud,as well as Algerian poets like Jean Sénac, Kateb Yacine, Bachir Hadj Ali, and Mohamed Saleh Baouiya.