- Fatima Bakhaï (1949-, Algeria) – Dounia (‘Dunya’, 1995) tells the story of a young ambitious girl, Dounia, maturing during the French occupation of Oran in 1830 (reference). Dounia, educated by her father about culture and political questions next to her education at the madrassa, eventually takes up arms against the colonizer (reference). The novel displays Algerian life under Ottoman rule, but also records the brutal war between the newly arrived French colonisers and the Algerian resistance (also in F: Children and Family Life: Children and Adolescents: Female Arabic Bildungsroman).
- Assia Djebber (written elsewhere as Assiya Jabbār, 1936 – 2015, Algeria) – L’Amour, la fantasia (1985, English trans. Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, 1996). The novel describes the extermination of the Oulad Riah tribe in Algeria in 1845. Djebber writes in the style of the French official report, weaving together French archival records and eyewitness accounts of colonization and oral histories in the Algerian dialect and Tamazight of women involved in the war of independence (reference) (also in F: Children and Family Life: Children and Adolescents: Female Arabic Bildungsroman).
- Mouloud Feraoun (1913 – 1962, Algeria) – Le fils du pauvre (1950, English trans. The Poor Man’s Son, 2005). This novel draw on the authors own childhood experience and tells of the life of an impoverished boy and his difficulties in attaining French colonial education in Algeria. Several chapters that critiqued the French colonial education were left out of the 1954 publication, but later published as part of the posthumous L’Anniversaire (‘The birthday’, 1972) (reference) (also in F: Children and Family Life: Children and Adolescents).
- Kateb Yacine’s (1929 – 1989, Algeria) Nedjma corpus includes several novels and plays that take place during the French colonization of Algeria and are “a complex national allegory in which desire for the sexually liberated Nedjma represents a longing for an independent Algeria” (reference). The mysterious identity of Nedjma reflects the heterogeneity of Algeria society: she is both Arab and Jewish.
In the novel Nedjma (‘Nedjma’, 1956), she is the focus of romantic attention of four men: Rachid, Mourad, Lakhdar, and Mustapha, who experience the brutally repressed demonstrations of Sétif on 8 May 1945. In the sequel Le polygone étoile (‘The starred polygon’, 1966) Lakhdar goes to France as an immigrant worker.
A series of plays is further part of the Nedjma corpus, such as Le cercle des représailles (‘The circle of retribution’, 1959), which focuses on Lakhdar, who is Nadjma’s lover and father of her child. He is a nationalist militant, and in the first play is in prison. As the story continues, Lakhdar is eventually stabbed by his stepfather, a colonial collaborator, who is himself later killed by Mustapha (reference).
- Ahmed Sefrioui (1915 – 2004, Morocco) – La Maison de servitude (‘The house of servitude’, 1973). This autobiographical novel describes a young man coming into conflict with modernity. The hero is a student of law and theology at the al-Qarawiyyin University in Fes (reference). His religious education and spirituality provide him with a form of inner peace and a path to self-realisation and resistance in the chaotic context during and after the French protectorate of Morocco.
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Neil Doshi. 2003. “Bakhaï, Fatima”, in Encyclopaedia of African Literature. eds. Simon Gikandi, Routledge: New York, p. 66
- Aissa Khaldia. 2016. “‘Dounia’ enfant de guerre.” Lugha – Kalām 2(1): 3-11, p. 4
- Hoda El Shakry. 2017. “Lessons from the Maghreb” in Arabic Literature for the Classroom, eds. Muhsin J. al-Musawi, Routledge: New York, pp. 109-130, p. 117
- Neil Doshi. 2003. “Feraoun, Mouloud”, in Encyclopaedia of African Literature. eds. Simon Gikandi, Routledge: New York, p. 269
- Jarrod Hayes. 2003 “Yacine, Kateb,” in Encyclopaedia of African Literature. eds. Simon Gikandi, Routledge: New York, p. 361
- Asma Marir. 2018. “Ahmed Sefrioui et ‘La maison de servitude’: la plume spirituelle comme voie/voix libératrice.” Paradigmes 2: 41-54, p. 44