SOURCE: Clifford, Caroline. “The Music of Multiculturalism in Leïla Sebbar's Le Chinois vert d'Afrique.” French Review 68, no. 1 (October 1994): 52-60.

In the following essay, Clifford discusses the treatment of “les croisés”—characters who belong to more than one culture—as depicted in Leïla Sebbar's Le Chinois vert d'Afrique.

Set in the present-day France of the increasing cultural tensions between immigrants and French de vieille souche, of the rising popularity of the Front National, and of a perceived need to defend French cultural purity, Leïla Sebbar's novels give a voice to the Beur children and other croisés growing up between the culture of their parents and that of the country in which they live. Sebbar ultimately affirms these children's right not to choose between cultures, but to incorporate distinct cultural particularities within a new composite identity. In Le Chinois vert d'Afrique (1984), she shows the characters...