The Postcolonial Writings of Assia Djebar: Re-imagining Women in ‘Women of Algiers in their Apartment’

Abstract

This article is a feminist postcolonial reading of Assia Djebar’s short story ‘Women of Algiers in their Apartment’ ([1980] 1992). Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia), written in response to Eugene Delacroix’s painting of the same name. The article argues that Djebar’s re-imagining of Algerian women constructs their identities within the ambit of a feminist politics hinged on ideologies of women’s self-definition, subjectivity and voice. These three ideologies intersect in their articulations of women’s agency in postcolonial Algeria. Such agency is a counter-discourse to the masculinist discourse of conformity, objectification and silence which pervades Delacroix’s painting of Algerian women. Juxtaposing Djebar’s liberating narrative with Delacroix’s constricting one opens up new avenues for reading feminist postcolonial theory.