To Be or Not to Bemétis
Nina Bouraoui’s Embodied Memory of the Colonial Fracture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5153871 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mona El Khoury (0000-0002-5107-6350, Olin Center, 180 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 123-135 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Angelaki (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0969-725X • E-ISSN: 1469-2899 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0969725x.2017.1285996 |
| OpenAlex | W2596849253 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
This essay deals with Nina Bouraoui’s mixed-race (métis) identity as presented in her autobiographical novels Garçon manqué and Mes mauvaises pensées. The métis question takes the shape of a representation of an ethnicized, dual and fractured identity. My argument explores a contradiction at work in Bouraoui’s texts: while reclaiming the existence of a Franco-Algerian métis identity, Bouraoui represents the métis as the incarnated perpetuation of the historical tensions that divided France and Algeria. The narratives simultaneously construct and deconstruct Bouraoui’s Franco-Algerian métis identity. I examine how Bouraoui represents her Algerian legacy and appropriates a familial history to construct herself as Algerian. I analyze how traumatic memories of asphyxiation are a metaphor for Bouraoui’s difficult relationship with her French self, symbolized by the motif of white skin. And I consider how the ends of the two novels provide a problematic acceptance and fulfillment of Bouraoui’s métis identity
Aesthetics · Art · Construct (python library · Contradiction · Epistemology · Identity (music · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Motif (music · Narrative · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · North African History and Literature · Psychology · History · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |