For our December book we’ll be reading Albert Memmi’s The Pillar of Salt, a semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy growing up in French-colonized Tunisia who must contend with his identities as Jew, Arab, and African at the advent of World War II. Albert Memmi’s novels and nonfiction explored his complex identity as an anti-imperialist, Zionist, and self-described “Jewish Arab.” Memmi passed away in 2020, so we will watch a short film on Memmi’s perspective on identity in the context of colonialism and then have a conversation about our responses to his book and the film. This will be on December 16 at 11:30 AM PST on Zoom.
