The Libyan Novel: Humans, Animals and the Poetics of Vulnerability

analysis of how the structures of racial violence underpinning settler society in Algeria compare to other settler contexts, historical and contemporary, would have enhanced both the reach and the depth of the book’s contribution to the scholarship. There is somewhat of a missed opportunity here to bring the wider colonial world into Algerian history and to bring Algeria into the history of the wider colonial world. This minor critique notwithstanding, Sylvie Thénault has produced a piece of scholarship that is both accessible and original, representing a significant contribution to the field. The reflection she offers on the structural racism and violence of the settler colonial polity and its minimisation and occlusion in the archival record is sure to open new and exciting avenues for research into the future.