Overview

This in-depth study of the works of major Francophone writers Assia Djebar and Leïla Sebbar redefines postcolonial literature by focusing on three characteristics. Donadey understands postcolonial literature as being both oppositional to and complicit with a variety of power structures. This literature also reclaims through fiction a history written primarily from a Eurocentric perspective. Finally, postcolonial literature engages with a variety of intertexts, which it alternately contests, reclaims, and reinvents. This work challenges the current practice of postcolonial theory by moving away from a focus on English language literature. Donadey argues that rather than being peripheral to postcolonial concerns, gender is one of the main reasons for the ambivalent aspect of much postcolonial literature. Recasting Postcolonialism outlines historiographical debates over the Algerian war and the place of women in the war. Donadey examines the narrative strategies Djebar and Sebbar use to rewrite an Algerian history that was partially erased by French colonialism. She also offers a clear analysis of how these two women's writings demonstrate the prominent role played by Algerian women and the historical memories of women in the recasting of Algeria's colonial past.

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Reviews

In Recasting Postcolonialism: Women Writing Between Worlds Anne Donadey examines key issues relating to postcolonial theory as she carefully analyzes the fiction of two leading Francophone African women writers, Assia Djebar and Leila Sebbar....Donadey is the first critic to examine Ibn Khaldun's influence on Djebar and to focus on the importance of epigraphs in the Algerian writer's work. -Mildred Mortimer Professor of French and Francophone Literature University of Colorado, Boulder Prof. Donadey has engaged in the most difficult and theoretical and critical challenges because at each step she had to demonstrate the importance and novelty of her own approach. I think that she has met the challenge she has set for herself: her reading of Assia Djebar and Leila Sebbar's novels and essays is radically new in many respects and represents an important contribution to the field of Francophone Studies. -Reda Bensmaia Professor of French and Comparative Literature Brown University Her exploration of the various strategies through which Assia Djebar exhumes and rewrites long occulted aspects of Algerian history is of crucial interest. So is her analysis of the difficulty in reconciling historical aberrations with myths of national unity and identity, as exemplified in France's repression of the memory of her Algerian experiences. Anne Donedey's multifaceted, interdisciplinary, both theoretical and textual study thus constitutes a substantial refinement of extant scholarship on postcolonial and transnational narratives. -Bernard Aresu Professor of French and Humanities Rice University In Recasting Postcolonialism: Women Writers Between Worlds, Donadey brings in new innovative, creative insights on today's postcolonial feminist criticism through an original reading of authors not often combined in such a thorough analysis. Lucid, critical eye, sharp and sensitive mind, she knows how to bring forth and elaborate on the literature and the criticism that contextualizes it without falling into complacent inbred weaknesses so often used in such approaches. -Evelyne Accad Professor, French, Comparative Literature, African, Middle East Studies, Women's Studies, Honors Program University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

?Her exploration of the various strategies through which Assia Djebar exhumes and rewrites long occulted aspects of Algerian history is of crucial interest. So is her analysis of the difficulty in reconciling historical aberrations with myths of national unity and identity, as exemplified in France's repression of the memory of her Algerian experiences. Anne Donedey's multifaceted, interdisciplinary, both theoretical and textual study thus constitutes a substantial refinement of extant scholarship on postcolonial and transnational narratives.?-Bernard Aresu, Professor of French and Humanities, Rice University

-In Recasting Postcolonialism: Women Writing Between Worlds Anne Donadey examines key issues relating to postcolonial theory as she carefully analyzes the fiction of two leading Francophone African women writers, Assia Djebar and Leila Sebbar....Donadey is the first critic to examine Ibn Khaldun's influence on Djebar and to focus on the importance of epigraphs in the Algerian writer's work.--Mildred Mortimer Professor of French and Francophone Literature University of Colorado, Boulder

Author Information

Anne Donadey is Associate Professor, Comparative Literature and Women's Studies, The University of Iowa.

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