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This article reports on the power relations at work in the process of literary recognition of Algerian French-language authors Kateb Yacine (1929–1989) and Kamel Daoud (1970–) in France. Based on a body of research consisting of semi-structured interviews, literary and meta-literary discourse, and documentation of various kinds, we show that power relations, which are signs of a ‟half-hearted” recognition, result from the unequal organization of the field of French literature, in which national origin acts as a hierarchical operator. This approach, which is sensitive to the nationalization of literary normativity, therefore makes it possible to shed light on the ways in which belief in literary value is formed in a postcolonial situation, as well as on the strategic uses of works outside their original field of production.