The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter is a poignant and challenging novel that is a perfect fit for readers who appreciate stories about identity, cultural heritage, and the complexities of immigration, particularly those who are interested in exploring the themes of colonization, family secrets, and the search for belonging across generations.

I was judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’d been doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got me to read on even though it was among 296 other books I’m charged to read.

Witty:
This is one more reason why fiction and research are equally necessary: they are all that remains to fill the silences handed on with the vignettes from one generation to the next.

One of the best and most poignant novels I've read this year; Zeniter's novel follows the historical events that impacted the lives of Algerians (WWI and WWII, colonialism, the independence movement in Algeria, mass-emigration), whilst providing a multi-generational viewpoint on immigration and cultural adaptation.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. This wonderful epic is told in three parts by the members of one family. The story starts with Ali in French ruled Algeria. He is from a poor family, but one day, during a great flood, Ali sees an olive press floating towards him. He’s able to grab it, start pressing everyone’s olives at a price and change the course of his life: The olive press leads to buying another one, buying olive tress and land until he is one of the wealthiest men in his town. But when rebels decide to challenge the French, Ali finds himself on the wrong side of the conflict, sure that the French will never leave. They do and Ali feels his life, and the lives of his family, is in grave danger and he takes his family and immigrates to France. The second part of the story concerns Hamid, the oldest child. The family has been relocated to a town near a factory where Ali works. Hamid dreams of escape. He finally goes to visit Paris and never goes back to his family, eventually marrying a native French woman and having four daughters. The third part is about Naima, one of his daughters who works in a gallery in Paris. She becomes obsessed with her family’s history, which no one wants to talk about. She gets a chance to go to Algeria to gather some artwork for an upcoming show at the gallery. It’s a trip that will not answer all her questions, but will take her back to the very spot where her family’s story began. This is such a smart and richly told story.

A fine, sensitive novel of emigration and identity. So many such novels are WWII related. It was refreshing to read one of the Algerian experience and expressed in several voices, spanning three stages of adjustment to loss, re-establishment and a degree of acceptance. As strong on character as on the political background, this seemed to me a notable and illuminating work.

As an American, I enjoy books that deal with immigration and colonialism from a point of view of other countries. This exploration of the French occupation of Algeria and the aftermath of Algeria's independence upon three generations gives an empathetic and informative look.

Lovers of history will find The Art of Losing to be right up their street. I can also see this kind of book appealing to fans of family sagas (such as the ones penned by Isabele Allende). I, however, found it slow going. The amount of info-dumping made reading this almost a chore. While I was interested in learning more about Algeria's history, here this history is imparted through seemingly never ending exposition. The omniscient narrator's tone also kept me from being truly engaged in the characters or the action of the story (in other words, it kept me at length).
I guess I have a low tolerance for books that are very heavy on the 'telling' and light on the 'showing'. I'm sure that this book will appeal to many readers but it was not for me.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It is in the outskirts of Paris, in a drab concrete apartment building, that three generations of Algerians can trace the beginnings of life in their new country. Ali flees his small Algerian town in the wake of the Algerian independence movement in 1962 when nationalists threaten his family. His stature diminishes slowly over his years in France. Told through the lens of three generations of a displaced family, this is a moving exploration of the immigrant experience. “It’s possible to be from a country without belonging to it,” says an acquaintance in Algeria. Truer words have not been spoken.

“What is not passed on is lost, that’s all there is to it. You come from here, but this is not your home.”

‘L’art de perdre’ or ‘The Art of Losing’ begins with Naïma’s journey in search of her roots back in Algeria. Her insatiable curiosity to cross the Mediterranean finally recalled back the family history far before the independence of Algeria in 1962. The story did not begin with Naïma, and we will get to see the past, present and future of displacements caused by centuries of French colonialism in Algeria, the Second World War, the Algerian War for Independence which was fought between 1954 and 1962. This is a really unique historical fiction written from French perspective that could trace the lines of complexities in the legacies of French Algeria beyond the common perception of ‘pieds-noirs’.

The book is divided into three parts: (i) Papa’s Algeria, (ii) Cold France, (iii) A Moveable Feast. Each of the three parts tell unique perspective of a Kabylian family who has to face displacement due to the end of French colonial rule in Algeria, spanning to three generations. The first part mainly tells the story from the viewpoint of Ali, Naïma’s Kabylian grandfather, whose status rapidly changed from a wartime hero who fought alongside de Gaulle’s Free France military forces during World War II to become a traitor hunted by the National Liberation Front of Algeria (FLN). But then, the family’s migration into France did not end well with the harsh treatment they had to face in the refugee camp. The Harkis (Algerian who fought alongside the French Army) created complexities of displacement in France that will invoke further crisis in the twenty-first century, with frequent associations of the Muslim migrants with terrorist movements.

To bring Naïma, a character with dual heritage who has an Algerian father (Hamid) and a French mother (Clarisse), as our main focus in this book is a unique way to touch this issue. Alice Zeniter presents us with many issues that are highly relevant to our daily life now, with common perception in the West about African migrants especially the Muslim fundamentalists who might pose threats to order. She paints the story as Naïma who struggles to define her identity embarks on a journey to the Algeria that never was, that her father tries so hard to forget, that her grandfather left for his family’s life. Her question haunts the whole story: “Is it possible to lose a country, to lose something that we never hold onto before?”

This is the kind of book that makes me ponder even long after finishing it, as the details invoke more questions to me about the state of Algerian migrants in France and people with dual heritage who descend from them. Alice’s novel is full of facts that seem so vivid that it was not hard for me to imagine Ali fought his way out of Kabylia, or Hamid’s struggles to set up his position as a young Algerian in a France that was still hostile to immigrants in the 1960s, or even Naïma’s confusion as she traces the lines of ‘familiar-yet-unfamiliar’ faces of Algeria where her roots came from.

Alice Zeniter has written a beautiful novel, that is as beautiful as the poem by Elizabeth Bishop from which the title of this book originates from.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

(Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979)

This was a great exploration of the immigration experience from Algeria to France after independence. It starts with a prologue following Naima, a second generation French Algerian woman, and then it is divided in three main sections. The first one is for Naima’s grandfather Ali, who fought in the revolution and independence war, and then migrated to France. The second part focuses on Hamid, Naima’s father, who moved to France at 11 and is trying to take distance from his heritage. Finally, Naima is the centre of the third part while going back to Algeria in search of her roots, acknowledging that the little knowledge she has comes from Wikipedia and her grandmother, and showing how Algeria has also changed.

The writing was very reflective and beautiful at parts, and it does a good job at showing how complex the identity of people with migration backgrounds can be. In a way, Algeria becomes its own character, with complex relationships, growth and background. The story follows a logical structure that makes it easy to identify with the characters and their struggles. Even though they might not always make the best choices, and even though they are very different people with very different relations to Algeria, you understand all of their reasonings. The only thing that bothered me is that, because Naima's feelings and presence is in all sections of the books, the last section felt a bit dragged to me, since there is less space for growth there because we have already seen her grow throughout the other two sections. But other than that, it was a great book!

Profound and moving. Exactly the type of literature I would like to read more of.

Wow. This was a fast read for me despite its 600+ pages. The main topic is the Algerian war of independence and its implications: nationalism, betrayal, civil war, forced migration - in this case to France, racism, as well as the future of Algerians in France. While I have studied the French colonialism on the intellectual level, seeing it in stories of real people truly humanizes this horrendous part of recent history.

It is a truly moving multigenerational story of one Algerian family's move to France, from being wealthy land owners back home to scrambling for a little life in the new country. Dealing with racism and poverty among other issues, each family member creates their national and personal identity in a different way.

Alice Zeniter's writing is wonderful and unique, full of rich details which make her novel even more memorable. However, while I didn't mind the longer read, I do think it could have been much shorter (by like 200 pages) and still gotten the point across together with the atmosphere.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.