The personal history of journalist Henri Alleg is tied inextricably to the history of the French-Algerian conflict. Best known for his book "The Question", a firsthand account of his torture by French troops during the Algerian war for independence, Alleg is famous both for having brought the issue of French torture to the public eye and for his passionate work as a writer, newspaperman, and communist activist. Beginning with his arrival in Algiers in 1939, when he fell immediately in love with the vibrant city, to his departure in 1965, after Boumedienne seized power, this is a critical work of history made devastatingly personal. "Algerian Memoirs" recounts Alleg's experience under the Vichy regime and such watershed moments in colonial history as the infamous Battle of Algiers. In these pages, he relives the violence and the summary executions, the communist struggle, and his party's strained relations with the National Liberation Front. And, of course, he revisits in stark detail his arrest and torture by the French, his years in prison, and eventual escape to Czechoslovakia. In the telling of his own story, Alleg explores some of the key events in the history of Europe and North Africa and in the history of the radical press. This is an irreplaceable document of colonialism and its tragic aftermath.

Originally published in 1958, "The Question" is the book that opened the torture debate in France during Algeria's war of independence and was the first book since the eighteenth century to be banned by the French government for political reasons.

At the time of his arrest by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers in June of 1957, Henri Alleg was a French journalist who supported Algerian independence. He was interrogated for one month. During this imprisonment, Alleg was questioned under torture, with unbelievable brutality and sadism. "The Question" is Alleg's profoundly moving account of that month and of his triumph over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre's preface remains a relevant commentary on the moral and political effects of torture on both the victim and perpetrator.

This Bison Books edition marks the first time since 1958 that "The Question" has been published in the United States. For this edition Ellen Ray provides a foreword. James D. Le Sueur offers an introduction.