Djebar, Assia (pseud. of Fatima-Zohra Imalayène) (b. 1936). Algerian novelist, historian, and film-maker. Born in Cherchell, she studied in Algiers, Paris, and Tunis, and was the first Algerian woman to enter the École Normale Supérieure de Sèvres. She taught history at the University of Rabat and, after the War of Independence, at the University of Algiers, where she was also involved in literary criticism, journalism, and broadcasting; in the early 1970s she collaborated in theatre-centred activities in Paris. She currently lives mainly in France.
Djebar's novels foreground women's exploration and definition of their personal, sexual, and social identity, in relation to the family, the male, and the community of women, in a world ordered by tradition but invaded by history. The young heroines of the first two novels, La Soif (1957) and Les Impatients (1958), rebel against the norms of family and society but with unforeseen, calamitous results. Les Enfants du nouveau monde (1962) and Les Alouettes naïves (1967) are set against the wider perspective of the Algerian War and follow the trajectories of a number of women whose development and destinies are bound up with the national struggle.
After a 10-year silence Djebar returned to fiction with the collection of short stories Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1980); the war and its aftermath form the background, but a strong note of female solidarity is introduced, prelude to a more overtly feminist stance. L'Amour, la fantasia (1985) is the first volume of a planned tetralogy. Scenes from the public history of the French conquest, into which Djebar introduces a female presence, are juxtaposed with incidents from the life of a girl growing up in the mid-20th c.; she moves in the enclosed world of women with its muted voices, rich texture of relationships, and store of memories and tradition, but at the same time takes the first steps towards independence through education. The second volume, Ombre sultane (1987), is the story of Isma, the sophisticated first wife of a man who has since married the more traditional Hajila, and of the latter's revolt against the constraints imposed upon her. Djebar has also directed the films Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua (1978) and La Zerda et les chants de l'oubli (1982), and has published a volume of poetry and co-authored a play.
[Rosemarie Jones]
Bibliography
- J. Déjeux, Assia Djebar: romancière algérienne, cinéaste arabe (1984)
