During the last fifty years Mouloud Feraoun Mohammed Dib Mouloud Mammeri and Kateb Yacine
achieved significant international recognition yet remain little known in the United States.
Filling a pressing need The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse provides a critical
introduction and a new approach to the works of these Algerian novelists. Beginning with an
overview of their novels this book goes on to discuss critical approaches to them challenging
the widely held notion that they are merely ethnographic upholding the status quo. The
Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse provides a new reading and most significantly argues
that they are best read as witnesses to the kind of conflict Jean-François Lyotard calls a
différend - a conflict in which one suffers an injustice and is at the same time deprived of
the means to argue. The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse then examines the issue of
humanism that the novels allegedly both appeal to and reject and demonstratesthat the Algerian
authors' condemnation of colonialism is both a coherent political position and consistent with
their critique of liberal humanism. It concludes with a discussion on the ongoing relevance of
the Algerian novels. The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse includes a glossary and a short
history of modern Algeria to provide readers with the political and cultural contexts they need
to understand its literature. This combination of innovative theoretical approach and political
context makes this book of utmost importance for students of Francophone literature and for
literary critics interested in colonialism postcolonialism and Lyotard's philosophy.
