Le rôle de l’oralité dans le roman Paravion de Haffid Bouazza

Abstract

Bouazza’s novel, Paravion, has been widely acclaimed by Dutch critics, but the so-called “loose” structure has elicited much criticism. The title refers to the wording on the letters sent by migrant labourers in the Netherlands to their respective families in Morocco. The opening word “Hear!” not only refers to the public reading of these letters to the illiterate families in the market place, it in fact alludes to the traditional beginning of a letter (“Dear ...”). Thus two seemingly conflicting traditions (the ostensibly unsophisticated oral tradition and the highly sophisticated epistolary tradition) are linked. In this article this novel is interpreted as a hybrid of Arabic and Western literary traditions and it is asserted that allusion to the oral tradition invalidates the criticism leveled at the novel, and ironically lends it its sophistication.