1. The atrocity was first commemorated publicly in 1990.
2. Though Algeria had become a veritable fortress of horror in the years 1954–1962 – which saw the sealing of the borders with Tunisia and Morocco, the carpet bombing of rural communities and urban centres (the most famous being the so-called Battle of Algiers that took place between September 1956 and September 1957) – the increasing acts of sabotage, international pressure and mounting expenditures made France’s dream of keeping Algeria untenable.
3. In 2006, François Hollande went on record as saying that ‘we still owe an apology to the Algerian people.’
4. S ituated in an old Janissary barracks in the heart of the kasbah, the Collège Sadiki had been established in 1875 by Khair al-Din Pasha, the Grand Vizier of Tunisia, in order to provide the next generation of Ottoman officials with a modern education. Six years later, the French invaded Tunisia, bringing three centuries of rule by the Sublime Porte to an end. Tunisia would remain in French hands until 1956.
5. Sénac, an old friend of Camus’ until their public split over the issue of Algerian Independence, was one of the few pieds noirs to remain in the country. His murder in 1973 remains unsolved.
6. Ben Bella was placed under house arrest until 1980, when he was allowed to go into exile in Switzerland.
7. One of Boudjedra’s most successful works – the Russian translation sold over a million copies in the Soviet Union.
8. The title in French is a pun: ‘FIS’ are the initials of the Front Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Front), the leading Islamist parties, while ‘fils’ is French for ‘son(s)’.
9. As with all of his novels, The Barbary Figs is partly autobiographical. The relationship between Rashid and Omar was apparently based on a similar experience Boudjedra shared with one of his cousins.
10. Some of the passages in The Barbary Figs – concerning Rashid’s brother Zahir – are taken wholesale from La Répudiation, his début.