| Sumario: | This article presents and analyses an eighteenth-century Algerian folk poem (malḥūn) about the 1770 Danish-Norwegian bombardment of Algiers, referred to in Algerian sources as 'The Poem of the Bomb'. By reading this poem in conjunction with other previously overlooked late eighteenth-century Algerian sources, namely Ibn Ruqayyah al-Tilimsānī's The Radiant Flower Regarding the Attacks of the Infidels on Algiers and al-Sharīf al-Zahhār's Memoire, I aim to highlight the importance of engaging with these neglected non-European and non-Eurocentric sources that offer the Algerian perspective on the 1769–1772 Danish-Algerian War and the 1770 bombardment of Algiers. Furthermore, in addition to analysing the poem's use of Romance loanwords associated with corsairs and piracy, I draw comparisons with an older Algerian folk poem, 'My Corsair Has Won a Booty', about the Algerian-Ottoman siege of Malta in 1565. Finally, through a comparative examination of the glorified portrayal of the Ottoman Dey Muḥammad Bāchā and the Turkish military oligarchy in 'The Poem of the Bomb' and the anti-Ottoman sentiment prevalent in Maghribī Arabic and Tamazight folk poetry lamenting the French conquest of Algiers in 1830, I shed light on what I see as a significant textual and discursive shift in the representation of Ottomans and Turks in Algerian and North African history, literature, and culture.
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