Narratives: History from Below and Undermining the Official Record in the Novel ― El Harki‖ by Mohamed Ben Djebar

This research paper addresses the issue of unspoken history by focusing on the voice of the ―Harki‖ or the ―traitor,‖ a forgotten entity in Algeria's official history. The latter has denied these marginalized figures the opportunity to speak for themselves and activate their memory to recount the past from their perspective. Unlike the official narrative, which glorifies the political history of the Algerian Revolution, novelist Mohamed Ben Djebar gives the Harki - a repressed entity that holds a negative reputation in the collective Algerian imagination - a channel to express itself, activate its counter-memory, and reveal overlooked aspects of Algerian history, which has remained the monopoly of official institutions. The novel ―El Harki‖ by Mohamed Ben Djebar ventures into historical writing from below, characterizing new historical writing that shifts its focus toward the marginalized and the silenced.