Fractured silences and youth dystopia in Maïssa Bey’s theatrical writings

Abstract

This study examines youth dystopia and fractured silences in the theatrical writings of Maissa Bey. These silences are a narrative strategy to represent the ambivalent experiences that dominate and circumscribe the lives of Algerian youth – clandestine migration, child suicide, and intellectual confinement in the prison system. These fractures are located in the liminal spaces between speech and silence, life and death, hope and despair, resistance and surrender to provide alter-narratives articulated from the margins of society. The characters’ painful silences are nonetheless reconfigured into a fragmented and introverted language of thwarted words as a means to give voice to silence and social dispossession. Bey’s writings represent a form of testimonial writing and a denunciation of Algeria’s postcolonial malaise.