ALGERIAN WHITE: A Narrative - Softcover

Assia Djebar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1583225161 ISBN 13: 9781583225165

Publisher: SEVEN STORIES PRESS, 2003

Synopsis

Translated by Marjolijn de Jager & David Kelley """"A hymn to friendship and the enduring power of language, [Algerian White] is also a requiem for a nation's unfinished literature"""" - New York Times """"Assia Djebar...has given weeping its words and longing its lyrics"""" - World Literature Today Weaving a tapestry of the epic and bloody ongoing struggle in Algeria between Islamic fundamentalism and the post-colonial civil society, Djebar describes with unerring accuracy and a ghostly presence the lives and deaths of those writers and intellectuals whose contributions were cut short.

About this title

Synopsis:

A Tapestry Of The Algerian Struggle Between Islamic Fundamentalism And Post-Colonialism; Many Algerian writers and intellectuals have died tragically and violently since the 1956 struggle for independence. They include three of Djebar's beloved friends: Mahfoud Boucebi, a psychiatrist; M'Hamad Boukhobza, a sociologist; and Abdelkader Allouda, a dramatist; as well as Albert Camus. In Algerian White, Dejbar finds a way to meld the personal and the political by describing in intimate detail the final days and hours of these and other Algerian men and women, many of whom were murdered merely because they were teachers, or writers, or students. Yet for Djebar, they cannot be silenced. They continue to tell stories, smile and endure through her defiant pen. Both fiction and memoir, Algerian White describes with unerring accuracy the lives and deaths of those whose contributions were cut short, and then probes even deeper into the meaning of friendship through imagined conversations and ghostly visitations.

About the Author:

A beloved author, translator, and filmmaker, Assia Djebar (1936-2015) was born Fatima-Zohra Imalayen in the Algerian town of Cherchell. Her novels and poems boldly faced the challenges and struggles she knew as a feminist living under patriarchy, and as an intellectual living under colonialism and its aftermath. Djebar's writing, marked by a regal unwillingness to compromise in the face of ethical, linguistic, and narrative complexities, attracted devoted followers around the world, and received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Venice International Critics' Prize, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Yourcenar Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize, and a knighthood in France's Legion of Honor. She was the first Algerian woman to be admitted to France's prestigious École Normale Supérieure, and the first writer from the Maghreb to be admitted to the Académie Française.

About this edition

• Publisher: SEVEN STORIES PRESS
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1583225161
• ISBN 13: 9781583225165
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240