When Mehdi Charef published his début novel Le thé au harem d'Archi Ahmed, he quickly became a public voice for the North African immigrant population living in France in the early 1980s. As demonstrated in Chapter II, Charef used his media appearances to tell viewers about the difficulties of life in France's economically marginalized banlieues, particularly for youth of North African descent. But Charef and his novel also did much more: Le thé au harem inspired an entire generation of young writers to take up the pen and share their own stories as children of North African immigrants to France. Azouz Begag, who has become one of the most prominent and politically active authors from this population, attributes his decision to write to the strong emotions he felt when he discovered Charef's work:

Begag's explanation of the impact Le thé au harem had on him reveals both how Charef's text had touched him and how he conceptualizes his own writing: Begag set out to write his personal story, to depict familiar ‘impressions, ideas, and emotions.’