"Elle ne me quitte pas": Isabelle Eberhardt and Language in Leïla Sebbar's Lettre à mon père

Abstract

Abstract: This article analyzes Leïla Sebbar's interest in and representation of Isabelle Eberhardt, who crisscrosses Sebbar's texts as an imaginary precursor who possesses many of Sebbar's own contradictions and aspirations. This essay examines how Sebbar uses the figure of Eberhardt in exploration of her Franco-Algerian linguistic and cultural identity. Drawing principally from three works, Lettres parisiennes : autopsie d'un exil (1986), "Isabelle l'Algérien" (1988), and Lettre à mon père (2021), the author argues that Sebbar's depiction of Eberhardt as a multilingual French and Arabic speaker connects the two sides of Sebbar's divided identity. In addition, Sebbar's emphasis on the fact that both women write and publish in French underscores the powerful link between them. In these works, Eberhardt acts as a cipher for Sebbar and remains a touchstone of Sebbar's reflections upon identity, language, and reconciliation.