The Poetics of Maghrebine Illegitimacy

The Poetics of Maghrebine Illegitimacy Danielle Marx-Scouras L OOMING FROM a NO MAN’S LAND, defying social and literary topologies, Maghrebine literature of French expression poses the threat of a teratology of literary production. For it has no roots or origins to legitimate it, save those determined by the aberrant historical context of colonialism. As for the Maghrebine Francophone writer who appropriates the language of his adversary, he occupies an untenable site. According to the Moroccan writer, Tahar Ben Jelloun, “Ecrire dans une autre langue que celle de la mère, c’est comme habiter un lieu par effraction.” 1Hence a profound sentiment of intrusion, nonbelonging and alterity on the part of the writing subject who alienates himself in the language of the Other. Maghrebine Francophone literature has at once intrigued and menaced literary critics for it appears to have no regard for borders and positions, and thereby challenges the notions of identity and system. Critical strategies attempting to neutralize one of the two terms of the antagonistic relationship—banishing the writing from the Maghreb under the taxonomy of “colonialist” ; subsuming it to the linguistic imperialism of “Francophone”—fail to recognize that the otherness or uncanniness of Maghrebine Francophone literature is concurrently the troubling and productive dimension of a cross-cultural writing which belongs neither to France nor the Maghreb. To the disconcertion of critics, it threatens the sacrosanct idea of literary nationality. The Maghrebine writer has received the “benefit” of a language and civilization of which he is not the legitimate heir. He is thus somewhat of a bastard.2 Illegitimacy is at the basis of Maghrebine Francophone literary production. The literary critic, Charles Bonn, has written that “Le roman maghrébin de langue française est né sous le regard et ‘dans’ le regard de l’Autre [. . .].” 3Thrown into the “wolf’s jaws” (Yacine), “forced to familiarize himself with the arms of the enemy” (Chraïbi), to 1. Tahar Ben Jelloun, “La maison des autres,” Dérives, No. 31-32 (1982), p. 8. 2. Jean Amrouche writes: “Le colonisé a reçu le bienfait de la langue de la civilisation dont il n’est pas l’héritier légitime. Et par conséquent il est une sorte de bâtard.” Cited in Abdelkébir Khatibi. Le Roman maghrébin (Rabat: SMER, 1979), p. 39. 3. Charles Bonn, La Littérature algérienne de tangue française et ses lectures (Sher­ brooke: Naaman, 1974), p. 77. V o l. XXVI, No. 1 3 L ’E sprit C réateur master the language of the master of the day, the protagonist-author of the first Maghrebine novels of the fifties and early sixties will experience the French language “as an exile” (Haddad). Alienated from his own, his identity will falter all the more under the scrutinizing gaze of the Other, who will refuse to legitimate his status: assimilation and colonial­ ism are incompatible.4The resulting condition of bastardy will be sus­ tained as a negative state, as an identity crisis to be surmounted through an act of reconciliation with one’s past, one’s origins, or a further break­ ing away. Today’s Francophone writer is no less estranged than his precursor of the fifties and sixties, from his society and from language as the ultimate guaranty of meaning and identity. The question of language still revolves around the notions of authenticity and legitimacy. Yet, unlike his prede­ cessor, today’s writer has succeeded in exploiting the alterity, bastardy, and treachery implied by writing in the adversary’s language, recognizing that these apparently negative attributes are precisely what characterize the avant-garde specificity of Maghrebine Francophone literature. For if the situation of being outside was initially perceived to be a negative effect of colonialism, today, it constitutes the basis for a writing and aesthetics of difference. Speaking of the potentially revolutionary implications of “ francophonie”—which apply as well to the more restrictive context of Maghrebine Francophone literature—the critic, Alain Baudot, stated: “Se retournant contre ceux-là mêmes qui aimeraient y voir le triomphe de l’identique (du Même) et donc de la domination, la francophonie se manifeste comme une stratégie de Paltérité, et...