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."

Strategies of Resistance in the Dramatic Texts of North African Women: A Body of Words

This study presents the first broad analysis of Maghrebian women's dramatic literature undertaken in English. The book considers sixty-five plays and works of performance art by twenty-eight women dramatists from the Maghreb.