Scope and Contents
The collection consists of writings, correspondence, project files, teaching materials, journals, photographs, printed material, personal papers, and audiovisual and computer media documenting the life and career of French-Tunisian author, critic, and philosopher Albert Memmi. Included are drafts, notes, research material, reviews, and fan mail related to works by Memmi such as La Libération du juif; Portrait du colonisé, précédé du portrait du colonisateur; Portrait du décolonisé arabo-musulman et de quelques autres; Le racisme; and Statue de sel. The collection contains extensive notes and drafts for articles, essays, lectures, speeches, interviews, and unpublished works on decolonization, African Americans, women, Jewish identity, North African literature, antisemitism, racism, oppression, happiness, and alcohol dependency. Memmi's journals, dating from 1936 to 2019, document his early life, work, and travels, in particular his brief imprisonment in a Nazi labor camp during World War II, and later his expulsion from Tunisia following independence from France. Among the correspondents in the collection are writers, educators, activists, artists, and politicians including James Baldwin, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Mark Chagall, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Shimon Peres, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Elie Wiesel; anti-racist and human rights groups such as Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples; and figures associated with the Négritude movement, including Alioune Diop, a Senegalese writer, editor, and founder of the journal Présence africaine, and poet Léopold Séndar Senghor, the first president of Senegal.
Dates
- 1922-2020
Creator
- Memmi, Albert (Author)
Language of Materials
In French, with some materials in English, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Box 95 (computer media): Restricted fragile material. Access copies of computer files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Boxes 96-97 (audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Box 95 (computer media): Restricted fragile material. Access copies of computer files may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Boxes 96-97 (audiovisual material): Restricted fragile material. Reference copies may be requested. Consult Access Services for further information.
Conditions Governing Use
The Albert Memmi Papers is the physical property of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the appropriate curator.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased from Librairie Benoit Forgeot on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund, 2021.
Arrangement
Organized into five series: I. Writings, 1936-2020. II. Correspondence, 1940-2019. III. Photographs, circa 1925-2018. IV. Professional and Personal Papers, 1922-2020. V. Computer and Audiovisual Media, 1980-2009.
Extent
93.52 Linear Feet (97 boxes)
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Overview
The collection consists of writings, correspondence, project files, teaching materials, journals, photographs, printed material, personal papers, and audiovisual and computer media documenting the life and career of French-Tunisian author, critic, and philosopher Albert Memmi.
Albert Memmi (1920-2020)
Albert Memmi was a Tunisian-born Jewish Berber Francophone writer, critic, and philosopher best known for his 1957 study Portrait du colonisé, précédé du Portrait du colonisateur (translated as The Colonizer and the Colonized). His other non-fiction works include Portrait d’un Juif (1962, 1966); L'Homme dominé (1973); La Terre intérieure (1976); Le dépendance (1979); Le racisme (1982); Ce que je crois (1985); and Ah, quel bonheur! (1995). His first novel, La statue de sel (1953), with a preface by Albert Camus, was awarded the Fénéon Prize in 1954. Other novels include Agar (1955), Le scorpion (1969), Le désert (1977), and Le pharaon (1988). Memmi also helped found a psychology institute and the independence journals L’Action and Jeune afrique, and he taught at several universities including École pratique des hautes études and École des hautes études commerciales de Paris.
Memmi was born in French colonial Tunisia to Maïra Sarfati and Fradji Memmi. He was educated in French primary schools, Lycée Carnot in Tunis, where he later briefly taught, the University of Algiers, and the Sorbonne in Paris. During the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, Memmi was imprisoned in a labor camp, from which he later escaped. Memmi was expelled from Tunisia after the country declared independence from France in 1956.
Memmi was born in French colonial Tunisia to Maïra Sarfati and Fradji Memmi. He was educated in French primary schools, Lycée Carnot in Tunis, where he later briefly taught, the University of Algiers, and the Sorbonne in Paris. During the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, Memmi was imprisoned in a labor camp, from which he later escaped. Memmi was expelled from Tunisia after the country declared independence from France in 1956.
Separated Materials
Printed material received with the collection was removed for separate cataloging and can be accessed by searching the library’s online catalog.
Processing Information
Collections are processed to a variety of levels, depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived research value, the availability of staff, competing priorities, and whether or not further accruals are expected. The library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit.
Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
Information included in the Description of Papers note and Collection Contents section is drawn from information supplied with the collection and from an initial survey of the contents. Folder titles appearing in the contents list below are often based on those provided by the creator or previous custodian. Titles have not been verified against the contents of the folders in all cases. Otherwise, folder titles are supplied by staff during initial processing.
This finding aid may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Audiovisual materials
- Authors -- France -- 20th Century
- Authors, French -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Baldwin, James, 1924-1987
- Beauvoir, Simone de, 1908-1986
- Born digital
- Camus, Albert, 1913-1960
- Chagall, Marc, 1887-1985
- Decolonization
- Dependency (Psychology)
- Diop, Alioune Oumy
- Ethnopsychology
- French literature -- North African authors
- Happiness
- Indigenous peoples
- Jewish authors
- Jewish-Arab relations
- Jews -- Identity
- Jews -- Persecutions
- Jews -- Politics and government -- 1948-
- Jews -- Social conditions
- Jews -- Tunisia
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 1908-2009
- Memmi, Albert
- Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (France)
- Negritude (Literary movement)
- North African literature (French)
- Oppression (Psychology)
- Peres, Shimon, 1923-2016
- Philosophers -- France
- Photographs
- Postcolonialism
- Race awareness in literature
- Race relations
- Racism
- Sartre, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980
- Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 1906-2001
- Wiesel, Elie, 1928-2016
- Women's rights
Creator
- Memmi, Albert (Author)
- Title
- Guide to the Albert Memmi Papers
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- by Brooke McManus
- Date
- April 2022
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
The Beinecke Library is open to all Yale University students and faculty, and visiting researchers whose work requires use of its special collections. You will need to bring appropriate photo ID the first time you register. Beinecke is a non-circulating, closed stack library. Paging is done by library staff during business hours. You can request collection material online at least two business days in advance of your visit, using the request links in Archives at Yale. For more information, please see Planning Your Research Visit and consult the Reading Room Policies prior to visiting the library.