Experimental Nations Or, the Invention of the Maghreb

Jean-Paul Sartre's famous question, "For whom do we write?" strikes close to home for francophone writers from the Maghreb. Do these writers address their compatriots, many of whom are illiterate or read no French, or a broader audience beyond Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia? In Experimental Nations, Réda Bensmaïa argues powerfully against the tendency to view their works not as literary creations worth considering for their innovative style or language but as "ethnographic" texts and to appraise them only against the "French literary canon." He casts fresh light on the original literary strategies many such writers have deployed to reappropriate their cultural heritage and "reconfigure" their nations in the decades since colonialism.

Tracing the move from the anticolonial, nationalist, and arabist literature of the early years to the relative cosmopolitanism and diversity of Maghrebi francophone literature today, Bensmaïa draws on contemporary literary and postcolonial theory to "deterritorialize" its study. Whether in Assia Djebar's novels and films, Abdelkebir Khatabi's prose poems or critical essays, or the novels of Nabile Farès, Abdelwahab Meddeb, or Mouloud Feraoun, he raises the veil that hides the intrinsic richness of these artists' works from the eyes of even an attentive audience. Bensmaïa shows us how such Maghrebi writers have opened their nations as territories to rediscover and stake out, to invent, while creating a new language. In presenting this masterful account of "virtual" but veritable nations, he sets forth a new and fertile topography for francophone literature.

Endorsements:

"This book is a vehement but always fair-minded and intellectually serious contribution to current discussions of francophone literature. Réda Bensmaïa means to displace the boundaries of francophone studies. At the same time, he provokes a migration of highly 'theoretical' texts from their 'proper,' Parisian territory toward a different, experimental terrain. An accomplished scholar and lecturer, a bold, offbeat novelist, Bensmaïa is a dynamic presence in literary and cultural studies here and abroad. One wants to know his point of view."--Ann Smock, University of California, Berkeley

"Réda Bensmaïa's Experimental Nations sets out to examine the issue of national identity, national language, and national culture in a context that makes the traditional definition of these categories problematic. The ideas are clearly articulated and developed in the various chapters dealing with writers from the Maghreb. This book represents an extremely interesting argument against reductive polarities in culture and a redefinition ofuniversalism outside of the colonial definition of uniform sameness."--Jean Michael Dash, New York University

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION: Is an "Experimental" Nation Possible? 1
1: Nations of Writers 11
1. Cultural "Terrain" 11
2. New Geolinguistics 14
2: Cities of Writers 27
1. The Imaginary of the Medina in Francophone Literature from the Maghreb 27
2. Algiers/Paris, or the City as a "Site of Memory ": Merzak Allouache's Salut Cousin 38
3: Nabile Farès, or How to Become "Minoritarian" 47
4: Postcolonial Nations: Political or Poetic Allegories? (On Tahar Djaout's L'invention du désert )67
5: (Hi)stories of Expatriation: Virtual Countries 83
1. Assia Djebar's La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua: Introduction to the Cinematic Fragment 83
6: Multilingualism and National "Traits" 99
1."Translating or Whiting Out Language": On Khatibi's Amour Bilingue 99
2. On Khatibi's Notion of the "Professional Traveler" 124
3. Writing Metafiction: On Khatibi's Le livre du sang 135
7: The Cartography of the Nation: Mouloud Feraoun's Le fils du pauvre Revisited 149
8: By Way of a Conclusion 159
APPENDIX: Le Dépays: On Chris Marker's Lettre de Sibéie (1957)165
NOTES 171
INDEX NOMINUM 205
INDEX REUM 209