A Literature of One’s Own: A Survey of Literary History and Criticism of Maghrebian Francophone Literature

A Literature of One’s Own: A Survey of Literary History and Criticism of Maghrebian Francophone Literature Judith Roumani C r itic s o f m a g h re b ia n l i t e r a t u r e in f r e n c h over the last half century or so have, despite their very different political convictions, tended to approach this literature, which rests on a colonial anomaly, with similar expectations. There has been more continuity in criticism and literary history than in the literature itself, which has consisted of a series of grapplings with new physical, political, and cultural environments, a continual return to the start rather than a continuity. While criticism has sought harmonious, organic development, literature itself came into being despite events, and con­ tinues to this day despite earlier predictions that it would soon wither away. Literature thus testifies in this case to the inadequacy of the organic scholarly metaphor. Critics and literary historians participate in a useful debate about identity and the future of the Maghreb, and sug­ gest possible interpretations of the relationship of literature to society, culture, and history, and between Maghrebian and other literatures. “ Il doit y avoir une littérature nord-africaine originale parce qu’un peuple qui possède sa vie propre doit posséder aussi une langue et une littérature à lui,” wrote Robert Randau, one of the better-known “Algerianist” French colonial writers of the Ecole Nord-africaine in 1920.1Over 60 years later, Randau’s prescriptive approach has certainly borne fruit, but not as he suggested or would have expected. Its form would surely have surprised him, for Randau’s idea of a “littérature nord-africaine” and of the “peuple” it would express was the antithesis of the principle of national self-determination, representing the concept of a French North Africa and a hybrid people. The history of Maghrebian Francophone literature has, in fact, as Jean Déjeux pointed out (op. cit., p. 21), constituted a series of surprises to scholars and critics of its early phases. Maghrebian literature has 1. In “ Le Mouvement littéraire dans l’Afrique du Nord,” Les Belles Lettres 17 (Nov. 1920), 350-80; quoted by Jean Déjeux, Littérature maghrébine de langue française (Sherbrooke: Naaman, 1973, rpt. 1978), p. 16. V o l. XXVI, No. 1 11 L ’E sprit C réateur defied the categories and predictable progressions of traditional literary history, emerging, as M’hamed Alaoui put it, fully adult: “Adulte dès sa naissance, elle saute à pieds joints dans l’après-guerre de la littérature et de la langue de la Métropole, se faisant du jour au lendemain l’héritière des acquis impressionants du long itinéraire de la littérature française.2 How, then, could literary criticism and history do much more than fulfill their most basic task of pointing out rapid literary changes? How could literary study amount to much more than reviews, interviews, bibliogra­ phies, and reports on recent trends? Criticism and literary history ideally not only react but constitute a cultural statement in themselves, helping readers relate literary events to each other and to developments in litera­ ture internationally. Despite the obstacles, criticism of the Maghrebian novel has subscribed to a consistent theory of literature (suggesting a close relationship between the novel and society), and even proposed a series of programs for writers in North Africa to follow in order to develop their national literatures. Moreover, inasmuch as literary history is a branch of history in general, or more precisely historiography, the issues examined, the ideological and theoretical positions which critics and scholars of Maghrebian Francophone literature have espoused, have contributed to the broader effort to write the authentic history of the Maghreb, in the words of Mohamed Sahli, to “décoloniser l’histoire.” 3 The misdirected energies of French colonial theorizers are dead letters existing in the yellowed and disintegrating pages of old journals and obscure boks. Randau’s 1920 statement in Les Belles Lettres (quoted above) reflected the colonial ambition of creating a hybrid people and was related to Louis Bertrand’s theory of latinit...