Diasporic Community of the Berber in France: Recreating Home and Harem from Exile in Azouz Begag’s Le Gone du chaâba and Ben Jelloun’s Les Yeux baissés

The exodus of Maghrebian citizens towards France was premised mainly on the high demand for unskilled labour for the reconstruction of postwar France. With a flexible French immigration policy that facilitated integration of immigrants‟ families, the growth of Maghrebian Diaspora became evident in peripheral settlements or French cities‟ suburbs. Azouz Begag‟s Le Gone du chaâba and Ben Jelloun‟s Les Yeux baissés chronicle the life of Maghrebian Berbers in Diasporic communities where cultural dispossession and unhomeliness stimulate the re-creation and transplantation of home and harem. This work adopts Homi Bhabha‟s concept of “hybrid identity” and “third space”. In reading both narratives as a migrant text that depicts the role of memory and nostalgia in constructing exilic identities and consciousness, this work underscores the fluidity of Diasporic communities. These communities deconstruct exilic identities that they seek to construct, being an “imagined community” whose foundations are laid with bricks of nationalistic sentiments and whose socialization is defeatist, however producing cultural occupants of third space

Transgressing borders or bodies, deconstructing geographies in Tahar Ben Jelloun’s “Partir”

As imagens paradisíacas da Europa e as imagens de uma África destroçada formam a matéria-prima para a configuração dos sonhos de deslocamento de um migrante Africano. Tal conceituação pictórica do estrangeiro, do de fora, define bem a arquitetura e a ambivalência de suas esperanças de partida de sua terra. Com a politização do espaço e do tempo, o seu “faux papiers” não pode garantir a possibilidade de entrada; o migrante é confrontado com a impenetrabilidade das fronteiras fechadas e dos limites. A Europa, agora símbolo de um corpo feminino, deve ser efetivada. Embora o limite (corpo) é hermético, poderia ser penetrado ou violado de forma enérgica. Focalizando Partir, de Tahar Ben Jelloun, este trabalho tenta mostrar como e porque os migrantes magrebinos transgridem fronteiras a fim de atingir os seus conceitos e idealizações dos países europeus, o que é analisado em relação ao discurso do corpo feminino. Este trabalho foca a idealização romântica do exterior impulsionada por sua penetração forçada ou transgressão de suas fronteiras. O autor deste trabalho entende também que a transgressão do espaço permite ao escritor desconstruir geografias globais que têm sido altamente politizados através do poder eurocêntrico do mapa (mundi).The pictures of paradisiacal Europe and images of hellish Africa form the raw materials for the configuration of dreams of displacement and dislocation of an African migrant. Incidentally such pictorial conceptualization of Abroad defines as well the architecture and ambivalence of his/her hopes of departing from his/her Home. With the politicization of space and time, his/her ‘faux papiers’ or ‘sans papiers’ cannot assure the possibility of entrance, s/he is confronted with the impenetrability of enclosed borders and boundaries. Europe, now symbol of a female body, must be consummated, after amorous conceptualization. Though the boundary (body) is hermetic, it could be penetrated or violated forcefully. Focusing on Tahar Ben Jelloun’s Partir, this paper attempts to show how/why Maghrebian migrants transgress borders in order to reach their conceptualized and idealized European countries; this is analyzed in relation to the discourse of female body. It argues that romanticized idealization of the exterior propels its forced penetration or transgression of its borders. The paper also opines that the transgression of space permits the writer to deconstruct global geographies that have been highly politicized through the Eurocentric power of map

Diasporic Community of the Berber in France: Recreating Home and Harem from Exile in Azouz Begag’s Le Gone du chaâba and Ben Jelloun’s Les Yeux baissés

The exodus of Maghrebian citizens towards France was premised mainly on the high demand for unskilled labour for the reconstruction of postwar France. With a flexible French immigration policy that facilitated integration of immigrants‟ families, the growth of Maghrebian Diaspora became evident in peripheral settlements or French cities‟ suburbs. Azouz Begag‟s Le Gone du chaâba and Ben Jelloun‟s Les Yeux baissés chronicle the life of Maghrebian Berbers in Diasporic communities where cultural dispossession and unhomeliness stimulate the re-creation and transplantation of home and harem. This work adopts Homi Bhabha‟s concept of “hybrid identity†and “third spaceâ€. In reading both narratives as a migrant text that depicts the role of memory and nostalgia in constructing exilic identities and consciousness, this work underscores the fluidity of Diasporic communities. These communities deconstruct exilic identities that they seek to construct, being an “imagined community†whose foundations are laid with bricks of nationalistic sentiments and whose socialization is defeatist, however producing cultural occupants of third space

In the light of Franco-Nigerian Literature: a conversation with Ramonu Sanusi, author of “Un nègre a violé une blonde à Dallas” (2016)

Author of Un nègre a violé une blonde à Dallas (2016)