I am writing an article on two new poets, who have been reviewed and discussed before, but who have not yet had research inflicted upon them. It is an interesting and for me, unusual experience to write about people on whom there is no critical tradition.
I am also on a dissertation on a writer I have not read before. Here are the titles of three articles on him:
McNeece, L.S.. “Decolonizing the Sign: Language and Identity in Abdelkebir Khatibi’s La Mémoire tatouée,” Yale French Studies 83 (1993): 12-29.
Mdarhri Alaoui, Abdallah. “Abdelkebir Khatibi: Writing a Dynamic Identity,” Research in African Literatures (Bloomington) 23:2 (Summer 1992): 167-76.
Sellin, Eric. “Obsession with the White Page, Inability to Communicate, and Surface Aesthetics in the Development of Contemporary Maghrebian Fiction: The Mal de la page blanche in Khatibi, Farès, and Meddeb.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20 (1988): 165-73.
Having read only one novel so far, and not yet knowing how obtuse or prejudiced I may be, or how much I am under the influence of the student (not always a reliable narrator), I have these preliminary comments about La Mémoire tatouée (Paris: Denoël, 1971).
This novel centers on decolonization and acculturation. The narrator’s memory is festooned with Berber tattoos, and he muses here in French as he reads in Arabic from the pages of the Quran. He wishes to disentangle himself from the web of identity and difference, and to become universal (“je parle à tous les hommes”). Yet the novel demonstrates why this is not a realistic political or psychological strategy.
That is my impression at this time. I am hoping someone will appear here and speak interestingly on the matter. I am expected to think of Fanon and Memmi in connection with this writer, but I am in fact thinking of Blanchot.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 