Rachid Boudjedra
Author of The Repudiation
About the Author
Born in Algeria, Rachid Boudjedra has been described as "the greatest living writer from the Maghreb." A journalist, teacher, lecturer, and militant leftist who has served in the Algerian resistance movement, Boudjedra established himself as a leading writer of the French language with the show more publication of his first novel, La Repudiation, in 1969. However, like Ngugi wa Thiong'o of Kenya, he was driven by nationalist fervor and dissatisfaction with the colonial language and its literature to renounce the use of French in 1981 and to turn to his native Arabic as his primary medium of expression. Boudjedra's work is perhaps best understood in terms of his identification with questions about Arab adaptation to, and identity in, the modern world. The novel La Repudiation marked a turning point in Algerian literature by breaking with the past and transgressing against such taboos as politics, sex, and religion. The themes introduced by La Repudiation were intensified in his subsequent novels. Topographie Ideale pour une Aggression Caracterisee (1975) confronts two cultures by reversing the Western perspective and denouncing the violence of modern life. L'Escargot Entete (1977) presents a political fable on the nature of bureaucracy while bringing to light societal prejudices, the small-mindedness of Islam, and the arbitrariness of patriarchal values. Les Annes de la Nostalgie (1979) adopts a fantastic, parodistic mode to reexamine the myths of Arab-Muslim society and culture when faced with the intrusion of the modern world. Le Vainqueur de Coupe (1981) and Le Demantelement (1982) are an intense meditation on the mysteries of history and the demand for subjectivity as a fundamental expression of freedom and truth. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Rachid Boudjedra
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1941-09-05
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Algeria
- Birthplace
- Aïn Beïda, Algeria
- Places of residence
- Aïn Beïda, Algeria (born)
Paris, France
Blida, Algeria
Rabat, Morocco
Algiers, Algeria - Education
- Sorbonne
- Occupations
- educator
Journalist
high school teacher
lecturer
scriptwriter
Members
Reviews
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 30
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 189
- Popularity
- #115,306
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 57
- Languages
- 6
Algeria was considered a part of France, not a mere colony, from 1830 to 1962. It was not like the country treated the Algerians as French people, for all they were officially citizens. After the war for independence was won, the country began the process of yeeting itself into a civil-warring mess.
Interrogating this process of disintegration is a life-long project for Author Boudjedra, born in 1941 and still with us as of this writing. He attempts to encapsulate his own life by trapping two estranged cousins, Omar and Rashid, on a one-hour flight from Algiers to Constantine, Algeria's second city. They reminisce, as we're all prone to do; they talk about love, sex, and death, and they don't shy away from the anger these conflicting needs and desires evoked then. The issue is repetition, as it is in all life stories. Are we here again, the reader wonders wearily; as I am an old man with some young people in my life, I cringe a little in self-reflective recognition. Sorry, Rob, I'll try to rein this behavior in.
Most of all, though, I want others to know that this is a story of great resonance, that its title is its organizing metaphor for fecundity and sweetness in many colors and shapes that no longer appear with regularity in public markets. Author Boudjedra's long, fatwa-filled career as resister of the colonizers, then resister of the religious mobs, is summed up in this rumination on what the past offers and what it does not. I think he said it best and most succinctly in a letter from the 1990s quoted in the translator's Afterword:
His eloquence and his fighting spirit shine through a translation that I can't say scintillates, though it is not pedestrian or plodding. I doubt it's inspired, though, as the source text won a literary prize. Albeit, I must say, one that appears to have vanished as of 2012....… (more)