Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond explores the Beur/banlieue literary and cultural field from its beginnings in the 1980s to the present. It examines a set of postcolonial Bildungsroman novels by Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul, Leïla Sebbar, Saïd Mohamed, Rachid Djaïdani, and Mohamed Razane. In these novels, the central characters are authors who struggle to find self-identity and a place in the world through writing and authorship. The book thus explores the different ways all these novels relate the process of "becoming" to the process of writing. Neither is straightforward as the author-characters struggle to put their lives into words, settle upon a genre of writing, and adopt an authorial persona. Each chapter of Writerly Identities in Beur Fiction and Beyond focuses on a given author's own relationship to writing before assessing his or her use of the author-character as a proxy. In so doing, the study as a whole explores a set of literary questions (genre, textual authority, reception) and engages them against the backdrop of socio-cultural challenges facing contemporary French society. These include debates on education, cultural literacy, diversity and equal opportunity, and the "banlieue" environment. Finally, it argues in relation to the authors and novels in question for the particular relevance of "rooted and vernacular" cosmopolitanism, which suggests both that exploration of the world must begin at home and that stories are crucial for such explorations.

"Writerly Identities provides a nuanced presentation of both established and emerging voices of Beur and banlieue fiction, and is best suited for an advanced undergraduate course or graduate seminar on Beur and banlieue film and fiction. The main strength of Writerly Identities lies in Reeck’s sophisticated close readings, however, and her focus on the practice and politics of writing in the banlieue. As such, it constitutes an important and original contribution to the field of Beur and banlieue studies, providing a welcome break from the autobiographical interpretations that prevail in the mainstream reception of these works." - H-France Review