1 The Negus 1930–1942
For a long time, Derrida’s readers knew nothing of his childhood or
youth. At most, they might be aware of the year he was born, 1930,
and the place, El Biar, on the outskirts of Algiers. Admittedly, there
are several autobiographical allusions in Glas and even more in The
Post Card, but they are so woven into various textual games that
they remain uncertain and, as it were, undecidable.
Only in 1983, in an interview with Catherine David for Le Nouvel
Observateur, did Derrida fi nally agree to proff er a few factual details.
He did so in an ironic, vaguely tetchy way, somewhat telegraphic in
style, as if in a hurry to get shot of these impossible questions:
You mentioned Algeria just now. That is where it all began for
you.
Ah, you want me to say things like ‘I-was-born-in-El Biar-on-
the-outskirts-of-Algiers-in-a-petty-bourgeois-family-of-assimi-
lated-Jews-but.. .’ Is that really necessary? I can’t do it. You’ll
have to help me...
What was your father’s name?
Ok, here we go. He had fi ve names, all the names of the
family are encrypted, along with a few others, in The Post Card,
sometimes unreadable even for those who bear these names;
often they’re not capitalized, as one might do for ‘aimé’ or
‘rené’.. .*
How old were you when you left Algeria?
You really are persistent. I came to France at the age of nine-
teen. I had never left El Biar before. The 1940 war in Algeria,
in other words the fi rst underground rumblings of the Algerian
war.^1- As we discover in the following pages, ‘Aimé’ and ‘René’ (with capitals) were
the proper names of members of Derrida’s family, but when used in lower case are
adjectives (‘beloved’ and ‘reborn’). – Tr.