The Algerian new novel : the poetics of a modern nation, 1950-1979 / Valérie K. Orlando.

Author
Orlando, Valérie, 1963- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
  • Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, 2017.
  • ©2017
Description
xx, 336 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Availability

Available Online

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks PQ3988.5.A5 O75 2017 Browse related items Request

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    Subject(s)
    Summary note
    Disputing the claim that Algerian writing during the struggle against French colonial rule dealt almost exclusively with revolutionary themes, The Algerian New Novel shows how Algerian authors writing in French actively contributed to the experimental forms of the period, expressing a new age literarily as well as politically and culturally. Looking at canonical Algerian literature as part of the larger literary production in French during decolonization, Valérie K. Orlando considers how novels by Rachid Boudjedra, Mohammed Dib, Assia Djebar, Nabile Farès, Yamina Mechakra, and Kateb Yacine both influenced and were reflectors of the sociopolitical and cultural transformation that took place during this period in Algeria. Although their themes were rooted in Algeria, the avant-garde writing styles of these authors were influenced by early twentieth-century American modernists, the New Novelists of 1940s-50s France, and African American authors of the 1950s-60s. This complex mix of influences led Algerian writers to develop a unique modern literary aesthetic to express their world, a tradition of experimentation and fragmentation that still characterizes the work of contemporary Algerian francophone writers. -- From publisher's website.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-325) and index.
    Contents
    • Introduction
    • Midnight novelists
    • French intellectuals, violence, and the Algerian war
    • Assia Djebar's La soif and Nathalie Sarraute's Portrait d'un inconnu: defining the authentic self in the exploration of a possible world
    • Claude Ollier's Le maintien de l'ordre and Kateb Yacine's Le polygone étoilé: writing the modern stories that cannot be told on the blank pages of Algeria
    • Mohammed Dib's Habel and the experimental Algerian novel: Third World movements and the ideological and literary "new man"
    • Rachid Boudjedra's Topographie ideale pour une Aggression caracterisee: labyrinths of Algerian modernity
    • Nabile Farès's Yahia, Pas de chance, and other experimental novels: out of the ruins emerges a new man and a new world
    • Yamina Mechakra's La grotte éclatée: reclaiming Algeria through the poetics of postcolonial space
    • Afterword: contemporary modes of being an Algerian author.
    ISBN
    • 9780813939612 ((hardcover ; : alkaline paper))
    • 0813939615 ((hardcover ; : alkaline paper))
    • 9780813939629 ((paperback ; : alkaline paper))
    • 0813939623 ((paperback ; : alkaline paper))
    LCCN
    2016055633
    OCLC
    964303469
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