It is the subtitle rather than the title that indicates the object of this interesting study. In practice, We Are Imazighen examines almost exclusively French-language literature, although under the broader rubric of ‘culture’ Fazia Aïtel also discusses song and film. Thus, the presence of ‘the Berber’ in Arabic-language literature falls outside this study. Moreover, by ‘Berber’, Aïtel actually means Kabyle; her book does not discuss the Chaouia, the Mzabis, or the Tuareg. It is with ‘the presence and role of the Kabyles in Algeria's literary scene from the 1930s to the end of the twentieth century’ (4) that she is really concerned.

There are three exceptions to this focus. As a preliminary to her discussion of Kabyle authors, Aïtel provides a fascinating survey of the presence of ‘the Berber’ in the writings of the ‘Algerianist’ school of European settler literature. These writings attempted to develop an Algerian identity based primarily on the European community but in a manner that implied a possible separation from the metropolis and incorporated aspects of the indigenous society in this vision. The presence of ‘the Berber’ in highly abstract, romanticized, or, frankly, caricatural portraits, was central to that project. The other two exceptions are Aïtel's extremely interesting account of the ‘Beur’ movement in France in Chapter Three (many if not most ‘Beurs’ were of Kabyle ancestry), and her powerful discussion of the work of Assia Djebar (who, while of Berber origin, was not from Kabylia but from the Mont Chenoua district west of Algiers).

That her object of study should be thus circumscribed is understandable given that it has been the Kabyles who have made an issue of their Berber/Amazigh identity. In this context, Djebar's work has the role of counterpoint to the Kabyle authors Aïtel discusses, since, far from affirming her Amazigh identity in her work, Djebar was reluctant to do so until a late stage. Thus, the analytical core of Aïtel's book consists of her examination of the writings of Jean El-Mouhoub Amrouche, Marguerite Taos Amrouche, Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri, Malek Ouary, Tahar Djaout, and the songs of Matoub Lounès.

Her discussion of the presence of the Berber in these various works is oriented by two main ideas. The first is her perspective on this cultural history as the story of the rise (or resurrection) of the Berber identity and its affirmation in the output of Algerian writers and singers. This positive perspective inclines her to evaluate negatively Djebar's long reluctance to come out as a Berber, inhibited as Djebar was by her inclination to affirm only her national – Algerian – identity until late in her life and work. Aïtel also offers a rather devastating critique of Djebar's famous film, La Nouba des Femmes du Mont Chenoua, an assessment that students of Djebar's œuvre should take very seriously.

The second idea is Aïtel's insistence that this process of affirmation has been conducted in a long series of dialogs or exchanges that has become an integral part of this cultural process and a tradition in itself. Thus she shows how, in their several ways, her authors have affirmed the Berber/Amazigh identity in relation to an Other, the precise identity of this Other being variable, although the French Other clearly predominated in the case of the Amrouches, Feraoun, and arguably Mammeri. The Other performs the functions of audience, gallery, and mirror as much as that of counterpoint. In this respect, the repertoire of the Kabyle singer Matoub Lounés stands out, in that he composed and sang his passionate songs in the Kabyle dialect of Thamazighth and addressed, above all, a Kabyle audience, whose idol he became. The salience of the French connection for the other authors has had its inconveniences; Aïtel explains that the issue is sensitive, for some view this engagement with French readers is suspect.

This issue is broached rather than fully treated by Aïtel. The possibility that mirrors can distort, and that the French connection has led some Kabyle intellectuals and activists to identify with explicitly French, rather than Amazigh, traditions (notably the idea of la laïcité d’État) can be properly considered only in an examination of Kabyle politics, which is beyond the scope of Aïtel's study. But this is not to detract from the value of her book. Her discussion of the literary corpus she examines is a tour de force of incisive analysis and thoughtful commentary, and her book is a major contribution to the study of the Amazigh identity movement in contemporary Algeria.