Deconstructing nostalgia for a fairy-tale Algerian past in Rachid Boudjedra’s literature

Abstract

This article analyses the methods that Rachid Boudjedra uses to deconstruct some common myths surrounding the making of the ‘Algerian national identity’. It examines the burgeoning, in the background of the author’s very first novels, of a maleficent fundamentalist ideology seen as the product of a surreptitious alliance and undertakings between the ‘Membres Secrets du Clan’ represented by the Algerian regime and the ‘faux devots’ represented by the Islamic fundamentalists to rule over Algeria. The article also points to the motives that led Rachid Boudjedra to use classical Arabic in his commitment to win over sympathy and support of a hostile Arab-speaking critical reception. Finally, it addresses Boudjedra’s various techniques of demythifiying nostalgia for a fairy-tale Algerian past.