The barbarian is the Other, the one who cannot be tamed. Barbarians do not seek to reclaim what they once were but to resist what they are becoming. In her book Restare barbari, Louisa Yousfi embarks on a journey through inassimilable otherness and the Western rhetoric of integration policies. The performativity of rap, with its ability to make language happen, puts conventional grammar under strain, giving shape to images, words, and gestures that refuse the bait of reconciliation.

Piersandra Di Matteo in conversation with Louisa Yousfi about the book Restare barbari. I selvaggi all’assalto dell’impero (DeriveApprodi, 2023). Moderated by Edoardo Lazzari.
The conversation is in French with Italian translation. 

The seminar, curated by Piersandra Di Matteo and Edoardo Lazzari, is conceived within the framework of the Curatela delle Arti Performative course at IUAV - Teatro e Arti Performative and is organized in collaboration with Scuola Piccola Zattere.

Louisa Yousfi is a French journalist and literary critic born to Algerian parents. She is the author of Rester barbare (La Fabrique, 2022), published in Italy by DeriveApprodi (2023), a work that draws on the notion of "barbarism," borrowed from Algerian writer Kateb Yacine, to offer a political and literary account of the (re)becoming barbarian of Black and Arab communities in France. More recently, she contributed to the collective work Contre la littérature politique (with Pierre Alferi, Nathalie Quintane, Leslie Kaplan, Tanguy Viel, and Volodine, La Fabrique, 2024).