Tunisia

The Pillar of Salt

Name: The Pillar of Salt
ISBN: 978-0807083277

by Albert Memmi

Identity & Belonging Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Classics 1955

Summary

Growing up in the Jewish quarter of French-colonised Tunis, Alexandre Benillouche is caught between several worlds. Born into a poor family of Tunisian Jews, with an Italian Jewish father and a Berber mother, he is exposed to different cultural traditions from an early age. An exceptionally gifted student, Alexandre earns the opportunity to attend French schools, where education opens doors to a world of privilege but also exposes the prejudice and exclusions that separate him from his European classmates.

As he moves towards adulthood, Alexandre increasingly questions the religious traditions of his family while discovering that assimilation into French society will never be straightforward. Neither fully accepted by the colonial establishment nor entirely at home in his own community, he struggles to reconcile his Jewish, Arab, African, and French identities. The outbreak of the Second World War and the Nazi occupation of Tunisia intensify his sense of displacement.

Semi-autobiographical and deeply introspective, The Pillar of Salt explores colonialism, cultural alienation, antisemitism, and the painful search for belonging in a society divided by class, religion, and race.

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Tunisia

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About the author

Albert Memmi

Albert Memmi (1920–2020) was a Tunisian-French novelist, sociologist, essayist, and intellectual. Born in Tunis into a poor Jewish family of Arabic-speaking background, he grew up at the intersection of Jewish, Arab, Berber, and French cultures. He studied philosophy in Tunis and Algiers, but his education was interrupted during the Second World War when he was interned in a forced labour camp under the Vichy regime. After the war, he moved to Paris, where he continued his studies and developed his literary and academic career. Memmi became internationally known for examining the psychological and social consequences of colonialism, identity, and oppression. His influential works include The Pillar of Salt (1953), The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957), and Portrait of a Jew (1962). His writing influenced generations of thinkers and writers studying colonial relationships and postcolonial identity. He received the Grand Prix de la Francophonie from the Académie Française and became one of the most important intellectual voices of twentieth-century Francophone literature.

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Details

Published: 1955
Author: Albert Memmi