Tradition and Transgression in the Novels of Assia Djebar and Aïcha Lemsine.

Djebar, Assia, 1936-2015; Lemsine, Ai'cha; Algerian authors

This article examines the way two Algerian authors include and treat tradition in their works. While Aïcha Lemsine in both her novels, La chrysalide (1976) and Ciel deporphyre (1978), tries to reconcile Maghrebian tradition and Western values, Assia Djebar, in La soif (1957), Les impatients (1958), Ombre sultane (1987), and L'amour, la fantasia (1985), opts for a careful deconstruction of tradition as an oppressive force in her representation of history; her writing, however, is embedded in the (Islamic) tradition as an axis of religious and social identity. Her characters often transgress taboos, for example, those pertaining to marital and sexual relations. Seemingly, it is Lemsine who "respects" tradition more, but in reality, it is Djebar whose work nourishes from the vernacular, albeit the open rebellion of her heroines against the domineering traits of patriarchy. Djebar subverts some of the concepts embedded in this tradition by applying several literary strategies. Many of her characters (Nadia, Dalila, Hajila, and Isma) choose to transgress taboos created by patriarchal tradition, while in L'amour, lafantasia the author applies a complex system of paratexts (epigraphs, chapter titles, etc.) to recontextualize both Algerian wars, that of colonization and that of liberation, undermining the Western tradition of historic representation, which corresponds closely to Michel Foucault's assessment of historical representation. According to him, there is no History (with capital H), only versions of the same event. Due to the fact that the written records of [H]istory represent the version of those in power, Djebar intends to fill the voids by including noncanonical and/or oral sources to her representation of Algerian history, which is significant, because with this strategy she indeed subverts the Eurocentric historic tradition. Djebar, in fact, shows great sensitivity toward subjects left out of the official historic records and readily creates the... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]