« Écrire l’absence » selon Assia Djebar : Le Blanc de l’Algérie

Maria Gubińska

Résumé

The well-known French-language writer, Assia Djebar, teaches the reader to listen intently to cultural differences, inspires tolerance towards other people and touches upon the problem of the emancipation of women in the Arab-Muslim civilization.

In her work entitled Le Blanc de l’Algérie Djebar recalls deceased Algerian intellectuals, such as Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon or Kateb Yacine, as well as cruelly murdered writers and less known persons, who proved to be important for the author herself (namely her friends) and for the history of Algeria. The author bemoans those absent figures, remembering their last minutes of life, their families’ despair, and the atrocity of death.

The article is an attempt at a reflection on the problem of absence that is in dichotomy with presence. The absence of great Algerians is unbearable; it is not silence but a cry for the memory of the tragic moments in the history of the country. Those moments, when remembered, shall help understand better the painful contemporary times. Djebar in a subtle way removes a white shroud (white is the colour of mourning in the tradition of North-African countries), thus showing the reader the moving and colourful Algerian fresco.