Assia Djebar

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Assia Djebar (1992)
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Assia Djebar (bourgeois Fatima-Zohra Imalayène ; Central Atlas Tamazight ⴰⵙⵢⴰ ⴷⵊⴱⴰⵔ Asya Djebar ; born June 30, 1936 in Cherchell near Algiers ; † February 6, 2015 in Paris ) was an Algerian writer , director , historian and university professor who wrote in French . She is considered one of the most renowned authors from the Maghreb . Her works have been translated into more than 20 languages.

life and work

Life

Assia Djebar was born as Fatima-Zohra Imalayène into an extended family with predominantly traditional Arabic structures. Her mother came from a Berber family , her father was one of the few local teachers at a primary school run by the French colonial power and called himself a socialist. Fatima-Zohra attended both a Koran school and the school where her father taught. Then she was one of the few Arab students who was able to complete a French-language high school.

On the one hand, her father made it possible for her to acquire an education and to move relatively freely in public spaces. On the other hand, however, he strictly prohibited any attempt to contact the opposite sex. In her novel L'Amour, la fantasia (1985), Djebar describes, among other things, her childhood between tradition and modernity under the rule of French colonialism .

After attending a year-long preparatory course at a renowned lycée in Paris, including with Dina Dreyfus , she entered the École normal supérieure de jeunes filles in Sèvres in 1955 , where she studied history and thus became the first Algerian and Muslim student at an elite French university . Together with other Algerian students , she got involved in the anti-colonialist struggle , took part in a student strike and therefore had to leave the university after two years of studies.

In order not to hurt her family and compromising, she took - before 1957 only 21-year-old her first novel La soif (dt. Durst, 2002) published - the name Assia Djebar on. Assia means consolation , and Djebbar means intransigence . It is a love story without reference to the current anti-colonial struggle, in which she does not omit the description of sexuality. This book quickly made her famous in France. There she was compared to Françoise Sagan . It met with strong opposition from Algerians. Some described her as immoral, even “whore”, while others complained about her “ petty bourgeois ” background. 1958 came out Les impatients (Eng. The Impatient, 2000). There she writes about the situation of Arab women in Algeria, which was then still colonized . The protagonist is a young, educated woman who follows her lover to Paris. Djebar again addresses erotic issues and the narrowness of the Algerian community, but also “the right of the colonized to emancipation”.

In the same year she moved into exile in Tunisia with her then husband, the Algerian freedom fighter Walid Garn, who was persecuted in France . There she completed her studies and worked as a journalist for a political newspaper. For a short time she then held a teaching position at the University of Rabat ( Morocco ) before moving to the University of Algiers after independence in 1962, where she taught history - especially that of the Maghreb - and theater studies . Since 1965 she lived in Paris again.

In the 1970s Djebar did not write any novels, spent a lot of time in Algeria doing research, made two successful documentaries in Arabic and Berber and worked as a director and assistant director on other films. She had previously pursued classical Arabic studies. "In her later novels she enriched the French language with the sounds and rhythms of Arabic."

After her divorce in 1975, she taught theater studies at the University of Algiers. In 1980 she married the Algerian writer Malek Alloula. The couple lived mainly in Paris, but often visited their Algerian homeland. From the 1990s these visits had to be canceled for political reasons.

From the beginning of the 1980s she published novels , short stories and essays , including her main work, the Algerian Quartet : 1985 L'amour, la fantasia (German Fantasia, 1993); 1987 Ombre Sultans ( The Shadow Queen, 1991); 1995 Vaste est la prison ( Eng . Far is my prison, 1997). The fourth volume remained unpublished. In 2007 she published her autobiography Nulle part dans la maison de mon père (Eng. Nowhere in my father's house , 2009) about her childhood and early adolescence in the Maghreb .

In 1997 Assia Djebar was appointed professor at the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University . From 2001 until her death, she taught at New York University . She lived in Paris and New York.

Assia Djebar died on February 6, 2015 in Paris. She was buried in her hometown of Cherchell near Algiers.

plant

Assia Djebar became famous in France as early as 1957 with her first novel La Soif . In it, she describes a young Arab woman's attempt at emancipation in Algeria, shortly before the war of independence . Her second book also deals with the pursuit of freedom , the rebellion against the limits of patriarchal tradition. In the following two works, she links the fates of women who are in the shadows with Algerian - French history.

The early novels have a continuous narrative structure. The feelings and desires of some (mainly intellectual) Arab women who were unable to express themselves are discussed. Assia Djebar was confronted by critics with the accusation that she placed the gender issue at the center of her novels, instead of dealing primarily with the Algerian people's struggle for freedom. In addition, they write in the language of the enemy.

Djebar then dealt intensively with the language of her literature , which she saw on the one hand as the medium of the colonialists, but on the other hand as an instrument for transporting the liberal, emancipatory ideas of an Arab intellectual woman.

She took a literary creative break. She studied Classical Arabic in the early 1970s. Her documentaries in Arabic related to the realities of life in Algeria. Here her focus was on depicting the utterances of forgotten Algerian women, some with a Berber background.

From the 1980s onwards, Djebar published again in French, but often used Arabic or Berber expressions. Their rhythm is also reminiscent of Arabic and Berber. She was aware of the problem of transferring thoughts and feelings, for example from Berber women who are in a context without a written language, via Arabic into French and having to accept blurring in the process.

Djebar, who became known worldwide with her new novels, now used refined, partially postmodern stylistic devices. The stringent narrative style gave way to a broken hybrid , richly pictorial language style . Voices from different protagonists are linked to historical discourses on colonial history and the struggle for liberation. In this way the forced leaden silence of Algerian women should be lifted and the silence broken about the crimes of the colonial system. The numerous cultural and historical allusions, sources and proper names, some of them in the original in Arabic or Berber, are not readily understandable for Western recipients, so that a glossary is often added to their books . In addition, there is the particular problem of making your works accessible through translation into another, the fourth, language.

As an author and intellectual woman, Assia Djebar is controversial in the undefined space between Arab and Western culture. On the one hand, she was a renowned, multiple award-winning writer who touched readers in Western cultures and also a minority in Arab countries for whom her books were accessible with her works. On the other hand, it has been criticized for subordinating itself to Western standards of value and culture, rejecting proven traditions and thereby discrediting their origins.

Barbara Frischmuth justified the award of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade with the following words: “In her work, she set a sign of hope for the democratic renewal of Algeria, for inner peace in her homeland and for understanding between cultures. Committed to the diverse roots of their culture, Assia Djebar has made an important contribution to the new self-confidence of women in the Arab world. ”Assia Djebar dedicated her acceptance speech under the title Language of Exile - Language of Rigor to three writers who were murdered in Algeria in 1993/94 .

Quotes

“I was brought up in a Muslim faith that has been the faith of my ancestors for generations, that has shaped me emotionally and spiritually and against which I admit I rebel because of its prohibitions, from which I have not yet been able to completely break free. So I write, but in French, in the language of the former colonizer, which, however, has become immovably the language of my thinking, while my language of love, suffering and also of prayer (sometimes I pray) is Arabic, mine Mother tongue, is. And there is also the Berber language of my home region ..., a language that I cannot forget, the rhythm of which is always present to me ... in which I, without wanting to, say "No" inside me; as a woman and above all in my ongoing endeavors as a writer. "

- Assia Djebar : at the award ceremony of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, October 2000

“I am moved that the academy accepted me as the successor to Georges Vedel. I am not a symbol. I just write. Each of my books is a step towards understanding Maghrebian identity and an attempt to enter the modern age. Like every writer, I work with my culture and bring together diverse motifs and worlds. "

- Assia Djebar : on admission to the Académie francaise, June 2005

Awards

In 1962 Djebar was awarded the French Culture Prize for Les enfants du nouveau monde . In 1979 she received the international criticism award at the Venice Biennale for her film La Nouba des Femmes du Mont Chenoua . In 1989 she received the LiBeraturpreis for her work Die Schattenkönigin . The University of Vienna awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1995. She also received the Maurice Maeterlinck Prix in Brussels in 1995. A year later she was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in the USA for her complete works. In 1997 she received the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize in Boston .

In 1999 Djebar became a member of the Royal Belgian Académie for French Language and Literature and was awarded the Médaille de Vermeil de la francophonie of the Académie française. In 2000 she received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade . On the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair with a focus on Arabic literature in October 2004, a reading with Assia Djebar took place. The University of Osnabrück - Department of Linguistics and Literature - awarded her an honorary doctorate in June 2005. In the same year she received the Pablo Neruda Prize in Italy and the Grinzane Cavour Prize in Turin the following year .

On June 16, 2005, Assia Djebar was elected to the Académie française as the first author of the Maghreb .

Publications

Novels and short stories

  • La soif. (Franz. 1957); The doubters. Heyne, Munich 1993. Thirst. New translation, Unionsverlag, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-293-20275-6 .
  • Les impatients. (Franz. 1958); The impatient. Scherz Verlag, Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1959. Heyne, Munich 1992. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-293-20191-1 .
  • Les enfants du nouveau monde. The children of the new world (French 1962)
  • Les alouettes naives. The naive larks (Franz. 1967)
  • Femmes d'Alger in the leurs apartment. (Franz. 1980); The women of Algiers. Stories, Unionsverlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-293-20147-4 .
  • Algerian Quartet:
I. L'amour, la fantasia. (Franz. 1985); Fantasia. Unionsverlag, Zurich, 1993, ISBN 3-293-20031-1 .
II. Ombre Sultans. (Franz. 1987); The shadow queen. Unionsverlag, Zurich, 1991, ISBN 3-293-20011-7 .
III. Vaste est la prison. (Franz. 1995); Far is my prison. Unionsverlag, Zurich, 1997, ISBN 3-293-00242-0 .
Volume IV. The fourth volume has not been published. The Algerian Quartet remained unfinished.
  • Loin de Médine. (Franz. 1991); Far from Medina. Unionsverlag, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-293-20088-5 .
  • Le blanc d'Algérie. (Franz. 1996); White Algeria. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-293-20178-4 .
  • Oran, langue morte. (Franz. 1997); Oran - Algerian night. Stories, Unionsverlag, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-293-20275-6 .
  • Les nuits de Strasbourg. (Franz. 1997); Nights in Strasbourg . Unionsverlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-293-20220-9 .
  • La femme sans sépulture. (Franz. 2002); Woman without a funeral. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-293-00308-7 .
  • La disparition de la langue francaise. (Franz. 2003); The lost word. Unionsverlag, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-293-00338-9 .
  • Zero part in the maison de mon père. (Franz. 2007); Nowhere in my father's house. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2009, ISBN 978-3-10-014500-0 . (Autobiographical story up to the age of 17)

Plays

  • Rouge l'abue. together with Walid Garn (Franz. 1969); Dawn. In: Pieces of Africa, Verl. Volk u. Welt, GDR 1974

Movies

  • La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua. Screenplay and direction, Algeria 1978 (International Critic Award at the Venice Biennale 1979)
  • La Zerda ou les chants de l'oubli. Screenplay and direction, Algeria 1982 (special award of the Berlinale 1982 for the best historical film)

Radio plays

  • Dawn, 1972, GDR radio
  • The Fever in the City, 1999, HR
  • The Lost Word, 2005, WDR

Speeches and essays

Readings

  • Fantasia (L'amour, la fantasia), speaker: Birgitta Assheuer, SWR 2002 (published in SWRedition, ISBN 978-3-95615-095-1 ., Available from all common audio portals)

literature

(alphabetically arranged and commented)

  • Souad Belkhira: The reception of Algerian French-language literature in German-speaking countries. Illustrated using the example of Assia Djebar, Azouz Begag and Maïssa Bey . PDF file, dissertation, Osnabrück 2013
  • Beida Chikhi: Les romans d'Assia Djebar. Offices des publications universitaires, Alger 1990 (analysis of the author's work)
  • Jeanne-Marie Clerc: Assia Djebar: écrire, transgresser, résister. L'Harmattan, Paris / Montréal 1997 (analysis of her works, including her cinematic work)
  • Bettina Flitner : women with visions - 48 European women. With texts by Alice Schwarzer . Knesebeck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-89660-211-X , pp. 68-71.
  • Claudia Gronemann : A hybrid gaze from Delacroix to Djebar: Visual encounters and the construction of female / other in colonial discourse of Maghreb (orientalist painting, photography and film) , in: Harald Fischer-Tiné / Susanne Gehrmann (eds.): Empires and Boundaries. Reconsidering Issues of Race, Class and Gender in African and Asian Colonial Settings. London: Routledge, 2009, pp.148-167.
  • Claudia Gronemann: Postmodern / postcolonial forms of autobiography in French and Maghreb literature. Autofiction - Nouvelle Autobiography - Double Autobiography - Aventure du texts. Georg Olms Verlag , Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 978-3487117423 . (Dissertation University of Leipzig, 2002).
  • Alfred Hornung, Ernstpeter Ruhe: Postcolonialisme et autobiographie. Albert Memmi, Assia Djebar, Daniel Maximim. Series Editors CC Barfoot and Theo D'haen, Amsterdam - Atlanta 1998. (Studies in comperative literature 20) (Comparison and discussion of the work of several authors)
  • Susanne Kaiser: The postcolonial Maghreb of Assia Djebar and Tahar Ben Jelloun. Transcript. Bielefeld 2015, also as an ebook, ISBN 978-3-8394-3141-2
  • Kian-Harald Karimi: 'Comme l'arabe avait disparu dans l'Espagne'. The Mediterranean as a contentious middle between Orient and Occident in texts by Assia Djebar and Amin Maalouf. In: Jürgen Erfurt (Ed.): Migration - Hybridity - Cultural Articulation. Multicultural discourses in francophone spaces. Peter Lang Verlag , Frankfurt a. M. 2005, pp. 159-185.
  • Fritz Peter Kirsch: Quelques réflexions sur l'Histoire dans les œuvres narratives d'Assia Djebar. In: Chroniques allemandes no 8-2000: Assia Djebar en pays de langue allemande. Center d'études et de recherches allemandes et autrichiennes contemporaines (CERAAC) de l'Université Stendhal-Grenoble III, pp. 91-103.
  • Stephan Leopold: Figures d'un impossible retour. L'inaccessible Algérie chez Assia Djebar. In: Wolfgang Asholt, Mireille Calle-Gruber et Dominique Combe (eds.): Assia Djebar, littérature et transmission. (Colloque de Cerisy). Presses de la Nouvelle Sorbonne, Paris 2010, pp. 141–156.
  • Hassouna Mosbahi: The rebellious daughters of Scheherezade. Arab women writers of the present. CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-42001-X , pp. 57-65.
  • Annika Nickenig: Discourses of Violence. Reflection of power structures in the work of Elfriede Jelinek and Assia Djebar. Tectum Verlag , Marburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8288-9218-7 .
  • Claudia Nieser: Hagar's daughters. Islam in the work of Assia Djebar. Theology and Literature, Volume 25., Grünewald, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7867-2871-9 ; also dissertation at the University of Tübingen 2010. Review by Markus Kneer as PDF file ; rpi virtuell, October 28, 2011.
  • Elke Richter: I-designs in a hybrid space - Assia Djebar's Algerian Quartet. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57195-8 (dissertation at the University of Göttingen 2004). French: L'écriture du 'je' hybrid. Le Quatuor Algérien d'Assia Djebar . University of Montpellier 2004.
  • Priscilla Ringrose: Sistre and the Semiotic: Reinscribing Desire into Language. In: Ernstpeter Ruhe: Assia Djebar. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2001, pp. 91-105, ISBN 3-8260-2145-2 (= studies on the literature and history of the Maghreb . Volume 5).
  • Ernstpeter Ruhe: Fantasia en Alsace. Les Nuits de Strasbourg d'Assia Djebar. In: Chroniques allemandes. no 8-2000: Assia Djebar en pays de langue allemande. Center d'études et de recherches allemandes et autrichiennes contemporaines (CERAAC) de l'Université Stendhal-Grenoble III, pp. 105–121.
  • Ernstpeter Ruhe (ed.): Europe's Islamic neighbors. Studies on the literature and history of the Maghreb. Volume 1 (1993), Volume 2 (1995), Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg, ISBN 3-88479-821-9 (Volume 1) and ISBN 3-8260-1137-6 (Volume 2).
  • Ernstpeter Ruhe (Ed.): Assia Djebar. Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-2145-2 (= studies on the literature and history of the Maghreb . Volume 5).
  • Brigitte Sendet: Destroyed people, disturbed writing. Assia Djebar "Le Blanc d'Algérie". In: Brigitte Sendet, Christa Ebert (Hrsg.): Literature and social experience at the end of the 20th century. Scrîpvaz, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-931278-40-9 .
  • Beatrice Schuchardt: Writing on the border. Postcolonial historical images at Assia Djebar. Böhlau, Cologne 2006, ISBN 978-3-412-32005-8 .
  • Veronika Thiel: Assia Djebar. La polyphonie comme principe générateur de ses textes. Edition Praesens , Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7069-0325-3 .
  • Veronika Thiel: Une voix, ce n'est pas assez… La narration multiple dans trois romans francophones des années 1980. Le Temps de Tamango de Boubacar B. Diop, L'Amour, la fantasia d'Assia Djebar et Solibo Magnifique de Patrick Chamoiseau . Dissertation, University of Vienna , 2011.
  • Esther Winckelmann: Assia Djebar. Writing as memory work. , Pahlrugenstein, Bonn 2000.

Web links

Commons : Assia Djebar  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Judith von Sternburg: Assia Djebar is dead. A woman and to be free . Frankfurter Rundschau online, February 8, 2015.
  2. ↑ A Muslim Girl's Dreams. The Algerian writer Assia Djebar. In: Hassouna Mosbahi: The rebellious daughters of Scheherezades. Arab women writers of the present. Munich 1997, p. 57 ff.
  3. ↑ Sabine Kebir: Algerian love affairs . In: Zeit No. 43, October 18, 2000.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Assia Djebar: Detailed biography , Unionsverlag
  5. ↑ Iris Radisch : Assia Djebar. The world consists only of stories that arise from stories . Time online, December 3, 2009.
  6. ↑ culturebase.net: The clear, fragile power of writing ( Memento from June 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Jürg Altwegg: On the death of Assia Dzebar. Write in French, pray in Arabic . FAZ online, February 7, 2015.
  8. ↑ Algerian writer Assia Djebar is dead . Time online, February 7, 2015.
  9. ↑ Assia Djebar †. She fought for emancipation in Algeria . Welt online, February 7, 2015.
  10. ↑ Speech in German translation on the occasion of the award of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2000 during the Frankfurt Book Fair in the Paulskirche: Laudation, speech and translation of the speech (PDF file), p. 16f
  11. ^ For example, in her novel Fantasia (French 1985), which was widely received . Cf.: Annika Nickenig: Discourses of Violence. Reflection of power structures in the work of Elfriede Jelinek and Assia Djebar. Marburg 2007, p. 32
  12. ↑ Laudation on the occasion of the award of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2000 during the Frankfurt Book Fair in the Paulskirche: Laudation, speech and translation of the speech (PDF file)
  13. ↑ German The Children of the New World, so far no German-language edition.
  14. ↑ Regina Keil-Sagawe: Shadow voices of the shadow women. Peace Prize of the German Book Trade . Friday, October 13, 2000
  15. ↑ Assia Djebar. Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, 2000 , (PDF file)
  16. ↑ Oliver Schmidt: University of Osnabrück awards Nobel Prize candidate Assia Djebar an honorary doctorate. idw. Science Information Service, June 21, 2005
  17. ^ Short biography and list of works of the Académie française (French) including awards
  18. ↑ Dirk Fuhrig: Dreams of hot-blooded masculinity. Assia Djebar's first novel "Durst" in a new translation. Literaturkritik.de January 2002
  19. ↑ Sabine Kebir: Algerian love affairs . Review. Time No. 43, October 18, 2000
  20. ^ "Soupe primitive" de la Guerre d'Algérie . Critiques Libres online (French)
  21. ↑ Susanne Heiler: The Maghreb novel. An introduction. Google books, Narr-Studienbücher, Tübingen 2005, pp. 115–117
  22. ↑ Barbara-Ann Rieck: Assia Djebar gives the "women of Algiers" a voice. The return of the seraglio. Berliner Zeitung, December 4, 1999
  23. ↑ Gerald Froidevaux: Djebar, Assia: Fantasia. PDF file. Review. FAZ.net, FAZ December 13, 1990, p. 34
  24. ↑ Doris rest: The shadow queen. For the 70th birthday of the Algerian writer Assia Djebar . NZZ June 30, 2006 (overall view)
  25. ↑ Reading as an empowerment strategy in Assia Djebar. The sultana reads. February 11, NZZ 2006
  26. ↑ Karl-Markus Gauß: The enemy in my house. Assia Djebars Algeria . Review. FAZ March 24, 1998
  27. ^ Jochanan Shelliem: A radio portrait . Deutschlandfunk October 16, 2000
  28. ↑ On the basis of this novel, Djebar developed an opera text. This first Islamic opera Ishmael's Daughters in Wind and Storm was staged at the Teatro India in Rome in 2000 and has not yet been performed again. Assia Djebar created the first opera in Islam. The Passion of Fatima. Interview with the author. NZZ October 22, 2001
  29. ↑ Nabou.ch: Kaleidoscope of dying. Assia Djebar's book "Weisses Algerien" ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  30. ↑ Renate Wiggershaus: Assia Djebar reports from the "Algerian Night". Untold story. NZZ October 11, 2001
  31. ↑ Nabou.ch: Intercultural Love Nights . Assia Djebar's new novel "Nights in Strasbourg" ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ Kristina Maidt-Zinke: Review: Fiction. Cold hand, taken from my stomach. Sultry voices: Assia Djebar's "Strasbourg Nights." FAZ August 13, 1999
  33. ↑ A woman without a funeral review. Assia Djebar on Marabou
  34. ↑ Evelyne von Beyme: When the past devours the present. Assia Djebar's "wife without a funeral" warns against forgetting. Literaturkritik.de, March 2004.
  35. ↑ Review by Farah Hindeja 2004
  36. ↑ Hanna Behrend: Arabic words. Assia Djerba's novel about the Algerian struggle for independence. Literaturkritik.de, March 2006
  37. ↑ Iris Radisch: Assia Djebar. The world consists only of stories that arise from stories . Time online, December 3, 2009
  38. ↑ Ursula Homann: Many scenes clearly illustrated. Assia Djebar on her childhood and youth in Algeria . Review, Literaturkritik.de, January 2010
personal data
SURNAME Djebar, Assia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Imalayène, Fatima-Zohra (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Algerian writer, filmmaker, historian and university lecturer
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Cherchell , Algeria
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 2015
PLACE OF DEATH Paris