Dear Boston-area friends--
You are warmly invited to come to two speaking events to be held in the Boston area soon, featuring Algeria's national-liberation heroine Zohra Drif. Mme. Drif played a key (real-life) role in the much-storied 1957 Battle of Algiers and recently retired from her service as Vice-President of the Algerian Senate.
Mme. Drif will bring her speaking tour,"Memories of Algeria's Freedom Struggle" to the following two events in the Boston-area:
** On Sept. 12, at 4 pm, at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she will be the guest of the Middle East Initiative, co-sponsored by Harvard's Center for Middle east Studies; and she will be introduced by Harvard Prof. William Granara.
** On Sept. 13, at 12 noon, at Tufts University, where her talk has the support of the History Department, the Middle East Studies Program, and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civil Life; and she will be introduced by Tufts Prof. Hugh Roberts.
We will have more details (including precise room assignments) about these events soon. We'll post them on the Just World Books events calendar when we get them, and send you an updated email with those details shortly before the events. But please mark your calendars for them now!
 Mme. Drif's tour will also take her to NYC and Washington DC. It coincides with the publication of the English-language version of her memoir, Inside the Battle of Algiers: Memoir of a Woman Freedom Fighter. The book was translated from the French original by Andrew Farrand-- and has a powerful Foreword from Mme. Drif's former FLN colleague, the renowned international diplomatist Lakhdar Brahimi.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing immediately after the event at Tufts. After the Kennedy School event, the book will be available for purchase and signing at the Harvard Coop bookstore, a short walk away.
September 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the climax of the Battle of Algiers, a struggle in which Mme. Drif played a key role as part of her country's movement for freedom from French colonialism. (The photos in the banner above show her at the time of her September 1957 arrest by the French forces-- and today.)
You can find out a lot more about Mme. Drif's life and her book at this page on the Just World Books website. There you can also read the plaudits that the book has received from leading scholars in Middle East Studies, anti-colonial studies, and women's studies. (David Ottaway, formerly of the Washington Post, notes in addition that "It reads like a thriller!")
We hope you can join us at one of the Boston-area events being held for this key figure from the history of the world anti-colonial movement. And please share the news of these events widely with your friends! You can use the links below to do so.
We'll be posting the full, final itinerary for Mme. Drif's three-city tour soon, and will let you know when it's posted. At that point, please be sure to tell all your friends in the other cities she'll be visiting, too!
Warmest wishes to you-- and I hope I may see you at one of these historic events--
Helena.
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