Family Saga

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Art of Losing
Art of Losing
Alice Zeniter
Some families inherit houses, photographs, and heirlooms. Others inherit silences. When Naïma, a young French woman of Algerian descent, begins exploring her family history, she discovers how little she knows about the country her grandparents left behind. Her grandfather, Ali, once owned land in Algeria but fled to France after the Algerian War of Independence. Her father, Hamid, grew up determined to become French, leaving painful memories and unanswered questions buried in the past. Spanning three generations and seven decades, The Art of Losing follows a family shaped by colonialism, displacement, and the struggle to belong. As Naïma begins uncovering the truth about her ancestors, she must confront a history that is both deeply personal and politically complicated. What does it mean to inherit a past you never experienced? And can you claim an identity when the stories that might explain it have been lost? Moving between Algeria and France, Alice Zeniter explores the invisible burdens passed from parents to children: the languages forgotten, the memories suppressed, and the connections that survive despite distance. Winner of the 2022 International Dublin Literary Award, this sweeping family saga is a powerful meditation on exile, belonging, and the stories we need to understand ourselves.
Algeria France 2017