"History, though it has been harsh, has not always been sad. It tells of lives that were not confined to the narrow bounds of a nation—or, worse still, a nationality. And while so much was deliberately directed toward ugliness, men and women have, time and again, through collective action, transcended it. I consider all these stories to be proof of that."

As she wanders through Barbès, Hajer Ben Boubaker recounts the small details and major events that have made the neighborhood the “birthplace of the immigrant struggles” and one of the strongholds of Maghreb music. Through archival boxes documenting the first Algerian neighborhood in the 5th arrondissement, the voices of elderly men recounting the city’s customs, and the hazy memories of struggles against racism, *Barbès Blues* brings to life characters, epic tales, anecdotes, and tragedies. All of these are symbols of a shared destiny—Maghreb immigration—which, within a labyrinth of tiny streets, has built itself a vast world. Hajer Ben Boubaker was born in Paris and grew up in the 18th arrondissement. A Franco-Tunisian independent researcher and documentary filmmaker, she is the creator of the podcast *Vintage Arab* and produced the radio series *A History of the Arab Workers’ Movement*, dedicated to the activist movement of the 1970s (France Culture; SCAM 2022 Sound Discovery Award). She is the recipient of the 2023 UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture.