Hearing Silent Voices: Women and History in Assia Djebar's Novels

Abstract

Silence in the universe of women in the Maghreb is a common topic in the Francophone literature. The main topic in Assia Djebar’s writings in what has been called the second period of her literary production (1980-1990) is resurrecting the silent voices of women in history. By breaking the silence imposed on women and giving them a voice and a memory, Assia Djebar unveils the silences of the Algerian history (past and contemporary). We intend to examine in this paper the silences unveiled by Assia Djebar in her novels of this period – Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, L’amour, la fantasia, Ombre sultane and Loin de Médine – in order to show how Assia Djebar (re)builds another critical view of history and restores the hidden voices of women and places for them in history, thus bringing into question the relationship between fiction and history, women and history. To this end, we will rely on theories of postmodern historiography and on the Derridean concept of phenomenological voice identified as a “third space” in which the woman exists as a subject.