Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to examine the double identity in Begag’s le Gone du Chaâba. Taken between two completely different cultures, the beur writer exploited the language to translate and transmit this duality. Le Gone du Chaâba is a 1986 novel by Azouz Begag, a French-born author of Algerian parentage, who offers an autobiographical glimpse of his childhood in and around Lyon. Set in the 1960’s, the novel presents Azouz navigating his experience between the slum where his family lives and the various French schools he attends. The text traces the issues of children of immigrants who essentially live between four language varieties: a cherished, formal Arabic, a version of Arabic or Berber spoken at home (rarely studied in written form), a “proper” French learned in school, and slang French spoken with friends. This study will explore the language issues as they appear in Begag’s le Gone du Chaâba, where they contribute to the process of identity formation for the child Azouz. In this novel the narrator presents himself as the voice of an individual who negotiates a place in an environment in the course of creation.
Highlights
The text traces the issues of children of immigrants who essentially live between four language varieties: a cherished, formal Arabic, a version of Arabic or Berber spoken at home, a “proper” French learned in school, and slang French spoken with friends
Alec Hargreaves, a specialist in French literature of Maghreb origin, describes the conditions for the emergence of “beur” literature. He explains for example that a certain censorship is necessary for the publication of a literary work whose protagonist would be of Maghreb origin: most of the novels produced by writers of Algerian origin in France centre on a single protagonist, it is very unusual for his or her name to be included in the title
We can say that we are faced with individuals who cannot claim a unique and precise identity because their existence is marked by the seal of interbreeding be it biological or cultural
Summary
Taken between two completely different cultures, the beur writer exploited the language to translate and transmit this duality. If he writes in French, he does not pledge allegiance to France. Azouz Begag traces his own childhood; every day he has to travel from his house in the Algerian slum to the French school in Lyon and back His struggle to ride these two worlds is what guides the progress of this story. The classroom becomes a critical site of mediation between practices learned at home and the expectations of various forms of French society In this novel, there is a fixation with an interstitial, or “in-between,” space in which the narrator is caught up in the midst of two identities. An in-Between Identity: Azouz Begag in Shantytown Kid had to navigate to find a place for themselves in French society, which reinforced the social stakes of his writing
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