Through the lives and love of Lilas and Ali, we see Algeria as it grows into its own independence
For a young boy named Ali, the first few days of Algerian independence are tumultuous. The changes around him—a military coup, war with neighboring states, and new national values—seem to erupt all at once, both challenging and thrilling him. Just as his external world changes, so does his internal world, as the love between him and his classmate, Lilas, grows. The novel Blue White Green follows the two on their journey from adolescence to adulthood as their country recreates itself. As Lilas celebrates her newfound chance to go to school, participate in politics, and choose whom to marry, her impending roles as wife of Ali and mother of their child force her to confront how tradition continues to hold fast.
Maïssa Bey's novel recounts three decades of Algerian history through the eyes of two children. Ali and Lilas watch their country gain independence, celebrate the victories of decolonization, and slide into a brutal civil war, all while negotiating their own experiences coming of age and falling in love.
Beautifully translated by Erin Twohig, this novel is narrated with humor and keen cultural observations, and offers a unique perspective on a nation with a compelling postcolonial story, which until now has remained inaccessible to English-language readers.
Reviews
"Maïssa Bey's Blue White Green interweaves the story of Ali and Lilas, coming of age and falling in love, with that of their country, a newly independent Algeria in constant flux. Translator Erin Twohig beautifully renders the author's immersive storytelling and lush imagery, as well as the protagonists' irresistible interior worlds."—Emma Ramadan, translator of Abdellah Taïa's A Country for Dying and Living in Your Light
"An excellent translation of a high-quality and important work. Blue White Green is a leading novel of the post-independence and post–Black Decade period in Algeria, offering a lyrical and highly readable story recording the changes in Algerian society during this tumultuous period. Twohig's translation is both eloquent and highly intelligent."—Jane Hiddleston, professor of literatures in French, University of Oxford, and official fellow in French, Exeter College, Oxford
"A poignant novel that deftly explores the intimate and social tensions at the beginning of the 1990s in Algeria, three decades after the country's independence. Through characters torn between tradition and modernity, Maïssa Bey captures the silences, rebellions, and hopes of a generation in search of identity. Today, the novel remains luminous and profound, transcending borders over thirty years after its publication in 1992. This translation is a necessary read for understanding Algeria's ongoing reckoning with its colonial and postcolonial legacy"—Valérie Orlando, professor of French and Francophone literatures and cultures, University of Maryland, and author of The Algerian New Novel: The Poetics of a Modern Nation, 1950–1979
About the Author
Maïssa Bey is an Algerian writer and educator born in 1950 near Algiers. Blue White Green, her seventh book, won the prestigious Cezam Prize in 2006.
Erin Twohig is associate professor of French at Georgetown University and a translator.
