Djamila Boupacha

A searing denunciation of French torture in Algeria by a classic feminist intellect

In 1960, as the Algerian War for Independence entered its sixth year, 22-year-old Djamila Boupacha was arrested for allegedly planting a bomb in a university cafeteria. While in custody, she was tortured and raped by French soldiers. Her case would have been buried like countless others had it not been for the efforts of her lawyer, Gisèle Halimi, and the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir to transform it into an international cause célèbre. Djamila Boupacha is the culmination of this campaign to expose the systemic violence of colonial rule. “To protest in the name of morality against ‘excesses’ or ‘abuses,’” Beauvoir writes, “is an error which hints at active complicity. There are no ‘abuses’ or ‘excesses’ here, simply an all-pervasive system.”

More than a historical document, the book is a profound exploration of morality, complicity and resistance. A classic text of anticolonialism, this is a story that demands to be read—and remembered.SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Introduction

GISÈLE HALIMI
1. A Letter from Camp Bossuet 
2. Ordeal by Torture 
3. ‘In this our Country’ 
4. The First Hearing 
5. The Djamila Boupacha Committee 
6. Metamorphosis of a President 
7. The Second Adjournment 
8. Raminagrobis and Joan of Arc 
9. 125,000 Francs to Reach France 
10. Djamila in Fresnes
11. Fresh Medical Verdict 
12. Algiers Disseized 
13. Case Transferred to Caen 
14. The Judge and the ‘Gégène’ 
15. Algiers Confuses the Trial 
16. The Decisive Test 

This Book Remains Open … 

Appendices
A. The Text of Djamila Boupacha’s Civil Indictment 
B. ‘In Defence of Djamila Boupacha,’ by Simone de Beauvoir 
C. Abdelaziz Boupacha’s Testimony Simone De Beauvoir is one of the best known French philosophers of the 20th century.

Gisèle Halimi is a major figure, owing to her career as a courageous defense attorney and feminist activist. Her death in 2020 was widely noted in the international press, with obituaries in the New York Times, Washington Post, etc.