Translingualism and Histories of Violence in Francophone Algerian Writing

Abstract

Abstract This article explores the complexity of translingualism in francophone Algerian writing and offers a close reading of Assia Djebar’s Vaste est la prison (1995) to demonstrate the variegated ways in which characters experience the interaction between languages in Algerian history. Drawing on thinkers such as Stefan Helgesson and Christina Kullberg, the article conceptualises ‘translingualism’ not so much as a sign of linguistic mastery, as has been the case in some earlier studies, but as a series of ‘events’ in which encounters between languages either blur or foreground boundaries in various ways at moments in texts where the history of Western imperialism and postcolonialism also play a role. This notion of events informs a reading of francophone Algerian writing, and in particular of Djebar, attentive to the subtle mingling and friction between languages as individuals use them in multiple and changing ways.