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Scheherazade's Sisters
| Article
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11135 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1993 |
2,296 Words |
| Author
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Charles R. Larson
Charles R. Larson is an internationally known authority on
Third World literature. He is the author of The Emergence of
African Fiction, The Novel in the Third World, and American
Indian Fiction. His novel The Insect Colony is set in West
Africa during the Nigerian civil war. He has edited several
anthologies of international writing and served as general
editor of Collier Books' African/American Library. He teaches
literature at American University in Washington, D.C. |
FANTASIA
An Algerian Cavalcade Assia Djebar,
translated by Dorothy S. Blair
Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1993
227 pp., $12.95
A SISTER TO SCHEHERAZADE
Assia Djebar, translated by Dorothy S. Blair
Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1993
160 pp., $12.95
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, a number of distinguished African writers engaged in a vitriolic dialogue over the issue of language. What it boiled down to was the question of African authenticity when the writer wrote in a European language. How could African literature, some writers questioned, be African, if the language was English or French? The dialogue was shortly diffused, perhaps in an overly simplistic manner. The gist of the response was cultural validity, not language. If I wrote this review in French, I would not be a French writer. Even if I could write mellifluous poetry in French, because of my birth, my upbringing, and my heritage, I would still be plain American.
The question of language is central to Assia Djebar's mesmerizing novel Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade (1985), the first volume of a quartet by this Algerian writer. The concern with cultural validity is so pivotal in this volume that one might even hazard to say that language, not character, becomes the central presence in this powerful work. That uniqueness makes the narrative stand alone, settling once and for all the concern (perhaps even guilt) earlier African writers had about voice. The language of the colonial oppressor may make the subjects in the colony (or ex-colony) cultural half-castes, but Djebar recognizes that a linguistic armistice is long overdue. Stated another way, language may kill (particularly another's culture) but it also liberates, finally delivering to the oppressed a pathway toward freedom. That freedom is never more evident than in the opening scenes in Djebar's novel.
Freedom from the veil
The initial sequence describes an Arab girl's first day at a colonial school. Third World writers have recorded similar events dozens of times. Anticipation is juxtaposed with fear and wonder. In some versions, the child is regarded by the parents (and the village
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