Yashima Khadra: In Search of a Miracle?

Authors

Isabelle Cata, Grand Valley State UniversityFollow

Department

Modern Languages & Literatures Department

College

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Date Range

2014-2015

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities

Abstract

After the success of his trilogy exploring political and religious issues in other Muslim countries (Les Hirondelles de Kaboul, L'Attentat and les Sirènes de Bagdad), Yasmina Khadra returns to Algeria and to its past. In the novel Les Anges meurent de nos blessures, he tells the life of a young uneducated araboberber who becomes a boxing champion and who despite his success is condemned to death. The story is presented from the point of view of the main character, Trambo/Amayas, who feels like a stranger both in the Algeria of before and after the independence. Khadra revisits the Camusian theme of the stranger, of strangeness and the absurd in an attitude of literary dialog but also in a deep questioning on the wounds of the colonial period. He comes back to the work of Edmond Bourg, Le Miraculé, to continue and explore the notion of miracle, a thought process that was already present in Les Hirondelles de Kaboul. What is the miracle as it appears in Khadra's works?

Conference Location

La littérature maghrébine de langue française au tournant du 21e siècle: Formes et expression littéraires dans un monde en mutation

Comments

Algiers, Algeria

ScholarWorks Citation

Cata, Isabelle, "Yashima Khadra: In Search of a Miracle?" (2015). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 644.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/644