Grab a Copy Here 👉 The Colonizer and the Colonized ✊
Books have that remarkable ability to speak to our hearts and minds, open us up to new worlds, and inspire us with an unmatched sense of creativity and courage. Yet, some books may go further still and speak personally to the lived experience of a particular reader, and I can finally say that I have found both the book and writer that seemed to speak directly to me.
I feel amazed that Albert Memmi only appeared on my radar this late on in my journey, but I suppose people, places, and in this case, authors, come into our lives precisely when they are meant to. Memmi's writing resonates with the personal struggle of a writer, indeed, a man, battling to come to grips with his own identity, each work an honest and courageous attempt to understand who he is.
As a fellow African, Memmi struggled with the complexities of being a French-Tunisian, and it's this struggle that gives a legitimacy and force to his writing in The Colonizer and the Colonized. Yet, I felt like this book went far beyond the aforementioned dichotomy, and raised universal questions about national and self-consciousness, not to mention our outlook of the "other/s".
Memmi's book brought me to the realization that a nation need not be colonized in the "traditional" sense in order for his portrait of the colonized to hold, and the opposite came to be equally true concerning the colonizer, each page speaking with incredible accuracy to my experience living in a country like China for example, and specifically to the phenomenon of teaching English as a second language. I came to nod with agreement and amazement with how well his portrait fits the typical international "teacher" like a snug glove, each page and chapter giving unique dimensions to questions of race, identity, and oppression, to name a few.
Of course, this is my interpretation based on my experience of exotic shores so far removed from a homeland that no longer feels like home, which is to assume that it ever did. Memmi's writing strikes with a sincerity made possible by first-hand contact with unique lived experiences. Each of Memmi's books act like large chapters to a remarkable journey of discovery, and if writers such as Steve Biko, Franz Fernon, and/or Kwame Anthony Appiah sit snugly on your bookshelf or occupy a space on your wishlist, then you may do well to add this remarkable writer to the collection. I wish you happy reading fellow book enthusiasts.
Grab a Copy Here 👉 Racism
Grab a Copy Here 👉 The Pillar of Salt
