Download or read book The Quest for Identity and the Loss of Identity in North African Literature of Exile written by Imene Belhassen and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation examines the theme of exile in the writings of North African writers, and explores how exile shapes their notion of identity. The notion of "exile" can be understood in two related but distinct ways: literally, it refers to a forced emigration, and metaphorically, to a voluntary one. This dissertation studies both types of exile, focusing on the metaphorical definition, and interpreting many forms of social exclusion as manifestations of a metaphorical exile. The focus is on francophone North African writers who are currently living in France, either willingly or by force, such as Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, and Malika Mokeddem, and on Beur writers, such as Azouz Begag, Mahdi Charef, and Leila Marouane. The thesis is a literary study of their works, assessing the varied ways in which exile is portrayed, as well as several implied questions. One of these is the nature of exile itself: examining how it represents a loss, and how it is a quest for the acquisition of a new identity. The works examined are L'enfant de sable, La nuit sacree, Jour de silence a Tangers, L'interdite, Des reves et des assassins, Vaste est la prison, Le the au harem, Le Gone du Cha̲aba, and La vie sexuelle d'un Islamiste a Paris. This dissertation also investigates the way in which Islam is represented in the literature of exile, as a religion, a culture, or an ethnicity. It also takes into account the effect of gender, in terms of the differences and similarities between representations created by male and female writers. Additionally, it examines how Islam, as a religion and as a strict political ideology, is one of the primary reasons for the exile of some North African writers, especially those from Algeria, due to the emergence of oppressive fundamentalism, and how this is reflected in their novels. This study concludes that these writers use exile as a tool by which to examine their roots through nostalgia and criticism, and to regain a lost freedom and acquire a new identity.

Download or read book Science Exile and the Problematic of Postcolonial Identity in North African Francophone Literatures written by Christine O'Dowd-Smyth and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cultural identity in the East African novel written by Regina Hartmann and published by diplom.de. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: As the Black African writers have taught us, we must dance our word, for in human speech as in dance, lies an offering; to speak and to write is also to offer oneself to the other; it is to be reborn together . This quotation by M. Rombaut locates African literature close to the performing arts. According to his statement African literature seems to transcend the conventional European conception of writing, which is conceiving literature as something planned and permanent. The idea of a literary performance in African writing places the author much closer to the story-teller, who is dependent on his audience and trying to keep in touch with them. By processing their feelings in his performance he gives expression to a common consciousness. In contrast to the Western author who often wants to stand apart from his society, African authors tend to aim their participation in the formation of a shared identity. This paper tries to find out how authors from the framework of East Africa conceive of cultural identity. Basically, I will proceed in two steps: part A is dedicated to the development of a pattern within which the complex issue of identity can be adequately discussed in an East African context. In Part B I will then apply this discussion scheme to three novels which as I will explain are representative for East African writing, in far as this term is justified. Part A starts off from some basic observations about identity, on the foundation of which I want to deduce the structure of my analysis. I will argue that identity is based on ones observation of the environment and on the influence of outsiders. All this is to some extent true for two concepts: individual and cultural identity. The latter develops when a group of individuals feels or is ascribed a common bond apt to correspond to several individual self-concepts. These individuals may then share a feeling of home, which can act as a physical but also mental commitment. Departing form these ideas I will show that four issues might be interesting in dealing with cultural identity, which can be expressed by some central questions: 1.Identity imposed and adopted: In how far can others influence our identity? 2.Identity rediscovered and reinvented:To what extent does our history work on identity? 3.Identity displaced: How does our feeling of physical or mental bond to a physical or mental space I will call home work on identity? 4.Identity integrated: How [...]

Download or read book The Quest for Identity in West African Literature written by Kristine Lynette Martin and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book North African Mosaic written by Nabil Boudraa and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book’s ambition is to offer the most recent scholarship on North African cultures at a time when the very notion of culture is being re-evaluated in the shifting tides that both associate and divorce the forces of nationalism, globalism and neo-liberalism. Another ambition is to be a readable document about the past and the potential of North African civilizations. Those which have been crystallized into a polysemic voice from centuries of occupations, exchanges and what is now commonly called hybridizations. In this work the collective position of the authors, with their different fields of experience, is that the languages, musics, and the many expressions of common life in North Africa continue to flourish. That they are a bridge between sub-Saharan peoples and Europe. That they are a necessary antidote to the anemic political discourses that have prevailed since decolonization. That they are seminal for the future of the African continent as it begins its true voyage into democracy. It is difficult, at this juncture, to measure the distance that, in the decades to come, will be achieved on that voyage. It is, however, less difficult to evaluate the importance of North Africa on tomorrow’s world. If the past is an indicator, it will be an important force in the cross-flow of trade, ideas and of global destinies.

Download or read book Flight from Certainty written by Anne Luyat and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2001 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Exile Language and Identity written by Magda Stroinska and published by Frankfurt am Main : P. Lang. This book was released on 2003 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Exile' means a prolonged, usually enforced absence from one's home or country. There is no paradigm for an exilic existence and no prescription of how to heal the loss of one's home and one's identity. Exiles move in space, migrating from one place to another, but they are trapped in time. They long for what they have lost and fear what is yet to come. Like the Roman god Janus, they constantly look both ways, often lacking language that would help them to reconnect with the world. This volume examines the process of the exile's self-translation by rediscovering a way of expression for the ensnared experience. It requires a new language so that the self may take a new shape. By discussing the unavoidable losses wrought upon immigrants, exiles and refugees by the mere fact of being displaced, the authors hope to foster a better understanding of these problems and help to rebuild shattered identities and ruined lives. Contents: Magda Stroinska/Vittorina Cecchetto: Introduction - Mary Besemeres: Cultural translation and the translingual self in the memoirs of Edward Said and Andre Aciman - Claire Burke: Exile from the inner self or from society? A dilemma in the works of Max Frisch - Ruth Burke: Persephone as paradigm: Fictional exiles in postcolonial francophone literature - Chantal Abouchar: Albert Memmi's Agar: The paradox of the couple - Andrea Rinke: German films in a German exile - Magda Stroinska: The role of language in the re-construction of identity in exile - Natalia E. Rulyova: Joseph Brodsky: Exile, language and metamorphosis - Annabel Cox: Achy Obeja's « Sugarcane and Cuban-American bilingual literature: Language choices and cultural identities - Branka Popovic: Theproblem of identity and language in refugees from the (former) Yugoslavia - Vittorina Cecchetto: From immigrant to exile: Does language contribute to this process? - Anthony Purdy: Collage and chronotope in Regine Robin's La Quebecoite - Iris Bruce: Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles: Sprechen, schreiben, schweigen - Catherine Reuben: Exile, identity and memory: the boundaries of perception - Maroussia Hajdukowski-Ahmed: At the borders of language, language without borders: Non-verbal forms of communication of women survivors of torture.

Download or read book Autobiography and Independence written by Debra Kelly and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an in-depth study of the autobiographical writings of four twentieth-century writers from North Africa, Assia Djebar, Mouloud Feraoun, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Albert Memmi, as they explore issues of language, identity and the individual’s relationship to history. The book places these writers in a clearly defined theoretical context, introducing and contextualising each of the four through the application of postcolonial studies and literary theory on autobiography linked to close textual reading of their works. Avoiding both psychoanalytical theory and approaches concerned primarily with the writer’s ‘testimony value’, Kelly concentrates instead on the poetic and literary qualities of each author’s work, dwelling on the politics and poetics of identity, as well as the ethics and aesthetics of this literature. She includes clear discussions of key terms such as ‘postcolonial’, ‘Francophone’, and ‘autobiography’, which current academic discourse has rendered very complex and even opaque. The book includes a fascinating photograph of two stone tablets inscribed with Punic and Numidian scripts, now held in the British Museum, which Assia Djebar writes about at length in one of the texts studied in the book.

Download or read book Two Questers in the Twentieth century North Africa written by Imen Ayari Cozzo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a unique exploration of the work of Paul Bowles and Ibrahim Alkoni, and reveals timely insights into the relationship between the West and the Orient, showing that they both challenge and extend existing scholarship on this subject. It builds on a sound theoretical platform which serves as a solid foundation for the analysis of the overarching theme. Theories of place, representation, Orientalism and post-colonialism are discussed in depth and are linked to the deconstruction and analysis of the selected literary texts, helping the reader understand the various quests and motivations of the protagonists of the works of Bowles and Alkoni. The first part of the book looks into the work of Bowles, and is based on the fact that many of the author’s texts revolve around the theme of encounters between Western and Eastern cultures. It adopts a specific focus on the North African space, which is depicted from a number of different points of view, including native, French, English and American perspectives. The second section discusses the work of the Libyan author Ibrahim Alkoni as a quester for a Mythical Identity. It introduces the reader to the significance of the desert in both classical and modern Arabic literature and its place in the Arabic cultural imaginary. This work is highly original both in its approach and subject matter, and, as such, it constitutes a valuable contribution to the study of comparative literature, Arabic literature, and postcolonial magical realist literature. It offers many original insights into this little studied field, demonstrating a successful venture into less-trodden terrain.

Download or read book African Cultures and Literatures written by Gordon Collier and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2013 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Besides searching book reviews, an interview with the writer Tijan M. Sallah, a full report on the 6th Ethiopian International Film Festival, and a stimulating selection of creative writing (including a showcase of recent South African poetry), this issue of Matatu offers general essays on African women’s poetry, anglophone Cameroonian literature, and Zimbabwean fiction of the Gukurahundi period, along with studies of J.M. Coetzee, Kalpana Lalji, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Aminata Sow Fall, Wole Soyinka, and Yvonne Vera. The bulk of this issue, however, is given over to coverage of cultural and sociological topics from North Africa to the Cape, ranging from cultural identity in contemporary North Africa, two contributions on Kenyan naming ceremonies and initiation songs, and three studies of the function of Shona and Ndebele proverbs, to national history in Zimbabwean autobiography, traditional mourning dress of the Akans of Ghana, and the precolonial origins of traditional leadership in South Africa. Contributors: Jude Aigbe Agho, Nasima Ali, Uchenna Bethrand Anih, Aboneh Ashagrie, Francis T. Cheo, Gordon Collier, Abdel Karim Daragmeh, Geoffrey V. Davis, Nozizwe Dhlamini, Kola Eke, Phyllis Forster, Frances Hardie, James Hlongwana, Pede Hollist, John M. Kobia, Samuelson Freddie Khunou, Mea Lashbrooke, María J. López, Brian Macaskill, Evans Mandova, Richard Sgadreck Maposa, Michael Mazuru, Corwin L. Mhlahlo. Zanoxolo Mnqobi Mkhize, Kobus Moolman, Thamsanqa Moyo, Felix M. Muchomba, Collins Kenga Mumbo, Tabitha Wanja Mwangi, Bhekezakhe Ncube, Christopher Joseph Odhiambo, Ode S. Ogede, H. Oby Okolocha, Wumi Raji, Dosia Reichhardt, Rashi Rohatgi, Kamal Salhi, Ekremah Shehab, Faith Sibanda, John A Stotesbury, Nick Mdika Tembo, Kenneth Usongo, Wellington Wasosa.

Download or read book State Formation and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa written by K. Christie and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-12-17 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For states in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, the "Arab Spring" has had different implications and consequences, stemming from the politics of identity and the historical and political processes that have shaped development. This book focuses on how these factors interact with globalization and affect state formation.

Download or read book When it No Longer Matters where You Live written by Tanure Ojaide and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Writing the Nation and Its Others written by Jeff Shalan and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Exile and the North African written by Roger Wolseley Wilkinson and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Isabelle Eberhardt and North Africa written by Lynda Chouiten and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a woman who traversed the North African Orient in male costume, who spoke Arabic as well as French, and who professed Islam while transgressing many of its instructions, Isabelle Eberhardt seems to fit within Mikhail Bakhtin’s definition of the carnivalesque as the impulse to blend that which is usually kept separate by artificial boundaries and hierarchies. Nevertheless, this study demonstrates that her evolution in the Maghreb is carnivalesque only in appearance. Despite her transvestism, the writer left unquestioned the traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity; it is her subscription to the patriarchal equation of maleness with power and womanhood with weakness which makes her borrow a masculine identity. In a similar way, her appropriation of several elements of Oriental culture does not prevent her from reproducing age-old Orientalist stereotypes. As portrayed in her texts, the natives are either aestheticized as picturesque figures from a bygone age or denigrated as uncivilized, dark-minded creatures. And because Orientalism, as Edward Said has famously argued, is but a textual manifestation of colonialism, Eberhardt’s Orientalist texts make her the accomplice of the colonialist project, a project which she also served by acting as a mediator between General Lyautey and native tribes. In discussing Eberhardt’s involvement in the colonial mission and her perpetuation of the patriarchal and Orientalist traditions, this study questions the image of rebel-figure that is usually assigned to her. Instead, it shows the writer’s literary and political gestures to be embedded in a marked quest for empowerment through the double (literary and political) conquest of the Orient.

Download or read book Precarious Lives and Marginal Bodies in North Africa written by Hervé Anderson Tchumkam and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-03-12 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marginal Bodies and Precarious Lives in North Africa: Homo Expendibilis presents an examination of North African literature situated at the crossroads of literary analysis, political philosophy, and sociology. The author analyzes social categories in relation to civil and social protections and in particular, the ways in which disruptions to these protections can lead to social degeneration. The author’s analysis starts from the premise that precarious lives in North Africa have become true bodies of exception. In other words, they are deemed dangerous, expendable and unworthy of the rights and treatment accorded to full citizens. Thus, the author assesses portrayals of violence in contemporary literature as a crystallization of the existing disjunction between the socially disqualified and those who wield colonial, political, and religious power. Moreover, the author argues that in order to understand contemporary politics and the current climate of insecurity, a deeper understanding of precarity in North Africa from colonial times to the present is crucial. By affirming their right to exist, the author argues that the marginal bodies of North Africa offer unique insights into the society that marginalized them and thus, from the often inaudible and invisible periphery, they nevertheless challenge the dominant ideas of the center.

Download or read book Africa Report written by and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: