Untimely Rewriting: Memory and Self-Censorship in Camus’ Le Premier homme

Abstract

Censorship invariably generates images of repression, prohibition, and sanction, thus positioning the author as a transgressive figure, heroic or subversive, victim or villain. However, censorship does not always require an external agent. Indeed, when it takes the form of self-censorship it frequently blurs the boundaries between the writing subject and the mechanisms and agencies of repression. This paper focuses on a high-profile French example of self-censorship – Albert Camus, and the Algerian war of independence – and explores some of the mechanisms used to silence the grievances of one community in order to ground the claims of another. The central argument is that Le Premier homme is a political text, a process of selective remembering seeking ways of rewriting the history of French colonialism in Algeria and proposing an ethical basis for a dialogic political project.