Interrogating the Algerian Folkloric Identity in Khadra’s What the Day Owes the Night

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore Folkloric material in Yasmina Khadra’s What the Day Owes the Night, to reconsider folklore, not as a remnant of the past, but as an artistic vehicle to locate cultural belonging. It examines the different elements by which folklore shapes individual and collective identity in colonial Algerian literature. The novel of Yasmina Khadra represents material and spiritual folk constituents of the Algerian national and cultural identity during the French colonization, mainly the moral struggle of the protagonist between his Algerian cultural heritage and the French-acquired culture. The novel is rich in cultural, artistic, and folkloric elements of the Algerian individual and collective identity. It also exhibits the contrast between the local, and everyday French habits, causing a chasm between the two cultures the protagonist is struggling to bear and fill. This research indicates that the protagonist’s internal conflict reflects the larger struggle that nearly all Algerians went through during French colonization by imposing the colonial culture on their own. Research findings demonstrate that folklore is a popular material that springs out from recurrent situations of everyday life. Khadra’s What the Day Owes the Night expresses verbal art as academic parlance to encounter identity issues. Khadra effectively captures the essence of Algerian society and its diverse cultural fabric through vivid descriptions and storytelling, shedding light on the intricate nature of identity in a colonized nation.