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| O'Riley, Michael |
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| Postcolonial Haunting and Victimization |
| Assia Djebar's New Novels |
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| Year of Publication: 2007 |
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| New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2007. X, 148 pp. |
ISBN 978-0-8204-9536-1  hardback |
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| Sales price |
| SFR 65.00 |
€* 44.20 |
€** 45.40 |
€ 41.30 |
£ 37.20 |
US-$ 63.95 |
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includes VAT - only valid for Germany |
[Currency of invoice] |
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includes VAT - only valid for Austria |
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| Book synopsis |
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| Postcolonial Haunting and Victimization: Assia Djebar's New Novels treats one of the central problems within the current geo-political conflict between Islam and the West: how the memory of imperialism fuels fundamentalist claims to territory and creates a paradigm of victimization through which martyrdom and terrorism prevail. Through an examination of the most recent works by the award-winning Algerian author Assia Djebar, this book considers how the culture of victimization prevails in postcolonial thought and practice, not only in the West but in formerly colonized territories as well. It examines the work of important postcolonial critics, such as Achille Mbembe and others, in dialogue with the works of Djebar, one of the most popular international postcolonial authors treating these questions from within the contemporary framework. Both in theory and in practice, this book reveals how pervasive haunting and victimization are in the wake of September 11th and provides an alternative way of responding to them. It demonstrates how Djebar's reticence to explore the details of colonialism marks an important shift in postcolonial literature and criticism and an important attempt to address the dynamics of victimization. Postcolonial Haunting and Victimization will be a great resource to all those interested in the question of Islam and the West as well as to a wide array of readers in the fields of literary and postcolonial studies. |
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| Reviews |
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| «Michael O'Riley offers his readers an informative and in-depth analysis of the most recent work of internationally acclaimed Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, examining her texts in terms of the theme of postcolonial haunting. With colonial ghosts haunting postcolonial nations - in the form of civil strife, social inequalities, authoritarian regimes - the critic finds Djebar probing their relationship to Algeria's collective memory. Studying Djebar's fiction attentively, O'Riley asks: Does not the obsessive return of colonial memories play into a paradigm of victimization? In other words, can one address the question of the Algerian War without succumbing to a form of postcolonial haunting that turns to victimization? O'Riley's thoughtful analysis grapples with this question and others pertaining to the complex relationship between the former colonial subject and the former colonizer which readers find at the heart of Djebar's fiction.» (Mildred Mortimer, University of Colorado, Boulder) |
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| About the author(s)/editor(s) |
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| The Author: Michael O'Riley is Associate Professor of Francophone Literature and Comparative Literature at The Colorado College. He is the author of Francophone Culture and the Postcolonial Fascination with Ethnic Crimes and Colonial Aura (2005) and of numerous articles on postcolonial theory and literature. He has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for his work on cultural memory. |
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