Interference and Gender Dialogue in Ben Aïcha by Kebir-Mustapha Ammi

Abstract

After Immoral Virtues (2009) and Mordecai (2013), Kebir Ammi has published Ben Aîcha, A travelling and a Historical fiction in which Kébir Ammi returns to the diplomatic relationships between Morocco and France in 17th century. Whereby he uncovers the noises of an impossible relationship; Ben Aicha, A famous Moroccan privateer of 17th century, falls in love with Marie-Anne of Bourbon, princess of Conti, and daughter of King Louis XIV, who met her in a lavish feast in Versailles. In Ben Aicha, the fictionalization of the story emphasises on the convening of Arab, French, Spanish and English intertext. In fact, the novel showcases several artistic forms, several writing forms and several forms of thought and hence, breaking the univocality of a monolithic vision of the world. The dialogue between history, politics, philosophy, poetry and painting made Ben Aicha a mosaic, a fragmentary text, an open domain for all cultural and linguistic influences. This generic and discursive outbreak, far from being arbitrary, is rather the expression of a vision of history and mankind sensitive to virtues of cultural encounters, he big shifts of the postmodern world which is reflected in the open structure of a literary text.