France and the Maghreb: Performative Encounters (review)

Using the concept of "performative encounters" developed in her introduction, Mireille Rosello analyzes postcolonial interactions between France and the Maghreb through a comparative reading of a variety of established and lesser-known texts as well as social events. Building on John L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words, Rosello uses the term "performative" to refer to the formation of a unique mode of communication that bypasses the constraints of pre-established subject positions. She posits that violent historical backgrounds can foreclose transnational exchanges and describes moments of contact between French and North African subjects as "performative encounters" when a predetermined outcome is altered by the appearance of a new idiom of interaction. Throughout the six chapters that follow the introduction, Rosello frequently turns to Assia Djebar's fiction, as well as to a wide array of other texts and events to find examples of performative encounters in order to further determine the scope of this concept.

The first chapter deals largely with more recent moments of encounter between France and the Maghreb, such as the official "Year of Algeria in France" or "Djazaïr 2003," rather than with literature per se. Central to this chapter is an analysis of the infamous October 2001 soccer game between the Algerian and the French national teams, cut short after spectators of apparently North African origin overran the field. According to Rosello, the encounter was not sufficiently detached from its political and historical contexts—specifically from the tumult brought by the September 11 events. The presence of numerous players of foreign origin on the French team, especially the star of the team, Zinedine Zidane, who is of Algerian descent, also short-circuited the match because the heterogeneous French lineup could not be reduced to the single nation it was supposed to represent. For Rosello, although this encounter between Algeria and France was officially a failure (given that the game was interrupted before either side could claim victory), it could theoretically have been a successful performative encounter if the rules of soccer had been redefined to accommodate both teams.

In chapter two, Rosello uses Djebar's short story, "Félicie's Body," to demonstrate that theories of hybridity and liminality are insufficient for understanding the turbulent relationship between Algeria and France. Considering Djebar's writings as a symbolic representation of this relationship, Rosello shows that stories such as "Félicie's Body" call for the creation of new methods of interaction at the same time that she underscores the necessity of considering dual identities as an inception rather than a resolution of the complexities stemming from a double national and cultural heritage.

Chapter three is dedicated to the language of performative encounters in the larger context of language politics in postcolonial North African literature. Addressing the position of the Maghreb in the larger francophone world, Rosello focuses on the encounter between the literature of the Maghreb and its languages. Using Fouad Laroui's Méfiez vous des parachutistes as a proof-text, she argues that bilingualism, code switching, and multicultural street languages have become a central issue for a new generation of North African authors, heirs to Driss Chraïbi, Assia Djebar, and Abdelkébir Khatibi and his crucial "bilangue."

Readers interested in literary studies as a discipline will find chapters four and five particularly engaging. There, Rosello discusses the importance of fiction as an alternative to official political discourse by studying the history of France and the Maghreb through the analysis of Djebar's L'Amour, la fantasia, Mehdi Charef's Le Harki de Meriem, and Yamina Benguigui's film Inch'Allah dimanche. In chapter five, she focuses on prosopopœia as a literary trope to demonstrate that accepted definitions of life and death stifle dialogues that only fiction can revive. Chapter six presents an original analysis of a drawing in Malika Mokeddem's novel N'zid and a cartoon by the famous cartoonist Jean Plantu, and, along with the short conclusion, lays the ground...