From Tahar Djaout's "No" to Mustapha Benfodil's "Enough!": Two Moments of Revolutionary Aesthetics in Contemporary Algerian Literature and Cultural Activism

Abstract

Vingt-cinq ans avant la mort de Tahar Djaout, le poete, journaliste, dramaturge, et activiste Algerien Mustapha Benfodil naissait dans l'ouest de l'Algerie. C'etait 1968, une annee de bouleversements culturels, economiques, sociaux et politiques a travers le monde. Cet esprit continue a guider et informer l'œuvre de Benfodil de nos jours. L'annee de l'assassinat de Djaout, Benfodil lui a rendu hommage dans un poeme intitule « la sante de la Republique ». Ce poeme relie ces deux auteurs et figures intellectuelles publiques textuellement d'une maniere immediate et evidente. Les paralleles entre les ecrivains, specialement en ce qui concerne la revolution et les relations que l'artiste partage avec la societe, l'etat, et la religion, sont profonds. Cet article examine les messages, les tons et les approches revolutionnaires de Djaout et Benfodil a travers l'etude de la poesie revolutionnaire du premier et d'une installation artistique, intitulee Maportaliche/Ecritures sauvages , du deuxieme. Dans cette tradition esthetique revolutionnaire, l'importance du travail de l'artiste/l'intellectuel/l'activiste prend une signification intensifiee, alors que cette figure se trouve alternativement adulee ou censuree. Abstract: Twenty-five years before Tahar Djaout's death, the Algerian poet, journalist, dramaturge, and activist Mustapha Benfodil was born in western Algeria. The year was 1968, a year of great turmoil and upheaval on cultural, economic, social, and political levels the world round. Benfodil began life in a revolutionary moment, and such a spirit continues to guide and inform his work today. The same year that Djaout was assassinated, Benfodil paid tribute to him in a poem entitled, A la sante de la Republique. This poem connects the two authors and public intellectuals textually in an immediate and evident way. And yet the parallels between the writers, especially concerning the theme of revolution and the artist's relationships with society, the state, and religion, run deep. This article examines the revolutionary content, tone, and approach of both Djaout and Benfodil through the study of revolutionary poetry by the former and an artistic installation, entitled Maportaliche/Ecritures sauvages , by the latter. In this revolutionary aesthetic tradition, the stakes of the artist/intellectual/activist's work take on heightened significance, just as this figure finds itself alternatively lionized or censored.