the trans-mediterranean navette : assia djebar and the ...

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This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University] On: 04 October 2014, At: 15:50 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Contemporary French and Francophone Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gsit20 The trans-Mediterranean navette: Assia Djebar and the Dictionnaire des mots français d'origine arabe Megan C. MacDonald Published online: 10 Jan 2013. To cite this article: Megan C. MacDonald (2013) The trans-Mediterranean navette: Assia Djebar and the Dictionnaire des mots français d'origine arabe , Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 17:1, 58-68, DOI: 10.1080/17409292.2013.742266 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2013.742266 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub- licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

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This article was downloaded by: [Columbia University]On: 04 October 2014, At: 15:50Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Contemporary French andFrancophone StudiesPublication details, including instructions for authorsand subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gsit20

The trans-Mediterraneannavette: Assia Djebar and theDictionnaire des mots françaisd'origine arabeMegan C. MacDonaldPublished online: 10 Jan 2013.

To cite this article: Megan C. MacDonald (2013) The trans-Mediterranean navette: AssiaDjebar and the Dictionnaire des mots français d'origine arabe , Contemporary Frenchand Francophone Studies, 17:1, 58-68, DOI: 10.1080/17409292.2013.742266

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2013.742266

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, orsuitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressedin this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not theviews of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content shouldnot be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions,claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilitieswhatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connectionwith, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly

forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 2013Vol. 17, No. 1, 58–68, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17409292.2013.742266

THE TRANS-MEDITERRANEAN NAVETTE:

ASSIA DJEBAR AND THE DICTIONNAIRE

DES MOTS FRANCAIS D’ORIGINE ARABE

Megan C. MacDonald

ABSTRACT Salah Guemriche’s Dictionnaire des mots francais d’origine arabe(2007) gathers French words that originally come from Arabic, putting them in thecontext of French literature, illustrating how Arabic has had a presence in French literaturethrough various histories. Reading Assia Djebar’s preface to this dictionary reveals anavette, or shuttle, between not only the linguistic sites of French and Arabic, but also aparticularly trans-Mediterranean geographic space. The navette as a reading strategyallows for a reading of the dictionary that can travel on, and between, texts and locations.Djebar’s preface is compelling not only for its content, but also for its position as anarrative coming before that of the bilingual dictionary. Her membership in theAcademie francaise renders her an expert in French who is at once inside and outsidemultiple languages and nation-states. She offers up the bilingual tome as a hopeful sitewhere ‘‘mots-passerelles’’ (‘‘bridge-words’’) are in constant movement or shuttling, andmaintain the tension on the in-between spaces in, and of, the Mediterranean.

Keywords: Djebar; Guemriche; Dictionary; Mediterranean; Francophonie; Arabic

Linguistically it is as if I have married a French woman, but my mother is stillArabic.

—Yasmina Khadra (pseud. MohammedMoulessehoul) (cited in Kimmelman, ‘‘In anAge of Globalism’’)

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

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Someone who uses (and wears) [porte] a pseudonym is necessarilypolyphonic.1

—Julia Kristeva (Lancon, ‘‘La Vie a deux’’)

In 2007, France-based Algerian writer and journalist Salah Guemriche publishedthe Dictionnaire des mots francais d’origine arabe. At almost 900 pages, this tomegathers 391 French words that have their origins in Arabic from a series ofdictionaries throughout history, tracing and tracking how the words becameFrench. The words included in the dictionary—‘‘from apricot to zero’’ (Martin)—range from common French words to those that are more obscure.Guemriche considers himself an ‘‘amateur’’ (Martin) when it comes tolexicography, but this fascination with word origins and how they travel and areshared across languages interested him since he was a child, and so he devotedfour years of research and writing to this question. Each word in the dictionaryis written in both French and Arabic with a definition in French, an etymologicaltrail indicating how it arrived into French, and finally, a list of titles from Frenchliterature throughout history in which the word has appeared.

The dictionary includes a preface by another France-based Algerian writer,the celebrated novelist, filmmaker, and member of the Academie francaise,Assia Djebar. Her preface, ‘‘Le Voyage des mots arabes dans la langue francaise,’’is about Arabic and is written in French, but it reaches further, collectingMediterranean roots in other Romance languages. It is through Spanish, Italian,and French, that ‘‘these Arabic terms, the final traces of which, in Europe,disappear from the stage, these ‘bridge-words’ (mots-passerelles) as one might callthem, reflecting their underground navigation, have gradually becomeamalgamated into European languages. It is the passage of these ‘intruder’(intrus) words, via Spanish or Italian, which has facilitated their ‘becomingFrench’ (francisation)’’ (19). These ‘‘mots-passerelles’’ (‘‘bridge-words’’) becomea navette or shuttle crisscrossing the Mediterranean basin: underwater—an‘‘underground’’ (‘‘souterraine’’) made liquid across the Mediterranean—andthrough the air. Reading Djebar’s preface not only for its content, but also for itsposition as a narrative coming before that of the bilingual dictionary, will revealher ‘‘mots-passerelles’’ (‘‘bridge-words’’) in constant movement or shuttling,keeping the tension on the in-between space.

I. The Bilingual Dictionary as Navette

Highlighting the navette or shuttle as a form of transit and as a readingmethodology allows for a reading of the dictionary that can travel on andbetween texts and locations. The navette is also a weaving metaphor, connectingtextures and tissues of sometimes disparate texts and languages that arebrought together with this movement. This reading methodology is inspired by

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Gayatri Spivak’s reading of Jacques Derrida’s Glas.2 As Glas is a text split in atleast two pieces or places, Spivak reads it as a navette: ‘‘As we read, we areobliged to be a navette between the two sides in order to find out what everyextraordinary page might mean’’ (1992, 794). Calling ‘‘text’’ ‘‘one of [Derrida’s]master metaphors’’ (794), Spivak cites Derrida on the urgency and necessity ofthe shuttle. Derrida offers the reading practice of Glas as text and navette, onethat is in transit between two sites, but that gathers threads and leaves traces inmultiple locations—watermarks opening furrows like wakes:

Navette is the word . . . The word—la navette—is absolutely necessary. It willhave had to be there . . . It concerns a small metal vessel in the form ofa boat . . . And then the weaver’s navette . . . coming and going woven in achain. The weave is in the navette . . . Isn’t elaboration a weaver’s movement?(Glas, cited in Spivak 1992, 794)

However, the shuttle, ‘‘the navette smoothly going back and forth between thetwo sides is not going to serve here,’’ as Spivak claims that Derrida has‘‘temporarily’’ given up ‘‘the metaphor of the text’’ (794). Rather than abandonthe evocative trope of the navette, I wish to re-start it, in order to mobilize it asa reading practice, or methodology privileging juxtaposition in order to do itswork, that is, to defamiliarize sites and linguistic archives thought to befamiliar, in order to make them new spaces. This navette is particularly suited toFrancophone literatures from and between France and the Maghreb. Reading theDictionnaire des mots francais d’origine arabe is impossible without the literal navetteas ship/weaving shuttle historically creating a trans-Mediterranean space. It alsodepends on the textual navette, reinforced by Guemriche’s collecting andtracking of French texts that include Arabic/French terms.

As an area of exchange, Al Andalous, North Africa, Christian, Jewish, andMuslim Europe are connected through histories of hardship as well as exchange.Djebar describes the interactions thus: ‘‘In such a long period of North-Southconfrontations, war-like or political certainly, but also fertile with theimpregnation of forms of speech (parlers) and exchanges of knowledge, insum in the mingling of tongues (en passage de langues) . . . eight centuries ofmaturation have favoured dialogues, translations, and comparisons’’ (Djebar 20).French has liquid roots in terms of its Mediterranean cross-flooding: it belongsto those who have it and use it, to paraphrase Algerian Francophone writerBoualem Sansal. Djebar’s notion of words in transit echoes Sansal’s conception ofthe French language, one that ‘‘has no nationality except that of her lovers. Havewe forgotten that French comes from Latin, Greek, and Arabic, and that it hasdrunk from all the fountains found on its path?’’ (Sansal 173) These words influx or in movement bear witness to their now generally hidden Arab roots.They branch out and change. Djebar sees Salah Guemriche—the collector andgatherer of words for this dictionary—and his work as something that

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rehabilitates ‘‘the stages of this semantic . . . navigation’’ (Djebar 20).3 Thebilingual dictionary offers French and Arabic words to each other as if the wordswere facing mirrors, connecting and moving between linguistic sites thatpromote trans-Mediterranean spaces. Guemriche’s insistence on including ahistory of French works of literature for each word acts as a counterpunch toofficial language policies that are often myopic or monolingual in scope. Ifnothing else, this dictionary also reveals the seams of the nation-state, a muchmore recent phenomenon than those linguistic, economic, and culturaltransmissions across the Mediterranean that predate national borders.

II. Covering the Dictionary

Before moving further into a discussion of Djebar’s preface, and how she seesthis dictionary as a pedagogical tool, I will interrogate the textual object of thedictionary itself, its physical presence. Its bright pink cover cradles a purpleHand of Fatima, a symbol used in Islam and throughout the Arab world by bothMuslims and Jews to ward off the evil eye. As the dictionary’s title cuts acrossthis graphic hand, Djebar’s name appears in its palm: ‘‘Preface d’Assia Djebar del’Academie francaise.’’ It is as an Algerian Francophone writer living in Francethat Djebar signs this dictionary, one written mainly in French with the originalArabic for each French word provided in both Arabic script and romanizedtransliteration. In addition, insofar as ‘‘Assia Djebar’’ is her nom de plume,Fatima’s hand may be felt to allude to Djebar’s real name, Fatima-ZohraImalayen: it prefigures her signature, tamping down the Fatima which cannot becovered over by the dictionary’s cover. The bilingual dictionary is a homeof language, as well as a contact zone, to use Mary Louise Pratt’s term.4 Thesignature—Djebar’s name and Fatima’s handprint—makes her a gatekeeper ofboth French and Arabic. Her cachet as a member of the Academie signals herauthority concerning the French language and French dictionaries, cited hereas a between-language signature. That is to say, as a member of the Academie, shehas a say over which words belong in French dictionaries and become officiallinguistic currency, even if some members of the notoriously conservativeFrench establishment questioned her inclusion in this group. With this signatureon the bilingual dictionary, she is placed between, and on, both French andArabic, conducting the flow of language from multiple origins.5

If her pseudonym is an addition to her birth name, Djebar’s writinglanguage is an addition to her mother tongues. If we read the illustrated Handof Fatima as both a reference to Assia Djebar’s birth name and as a symbolicself-portrait, or shadow portrait, the hand functions as a metonym for herplacement in the preface. Djebar not only signs this dictionary, but signs offon it (approves it). The cover then becomes a signed self-portrait, one that is

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distributed with her signature. In a slightly different context, Derrida offersremarks on the signature when it accompanies a photographic self-portrait:

The appearance of the signature is interesting. What does a signature do?It introduces a small transformation of the photographic portrait, makingit a self-portrait [. . .]. It is a matter, too, of affixing a seal of authenticity:by means of a superimposition, a kind of double exposure (a writing uponwriting—a name that calls for the audible present voice and performativelyrefers one to the giver shown on a silent photograph), one notes, and givesnotice, that this photograph has been presented by the subject in thephotograph. (Derrida 2010, 23)

Djebar as the Hand of Fatima and as her signature is a ‘‘superimposition’’ indouble—‘‘a writing upon writing’’ upon the open hand. Is this hand beckoningreaders or preventing entry? The Hand of Fatima is presented open-faced,foreclosing its closure, in order to block evil eyes or allow language to enter.Like a traffic director, it waves readers in, a cipher or a graph behind the name.6

In the context of Morocco, the ways in which the hand of Fatima is mobilizedcan be read as a ‘‘terrain on which to contest visions of the nation state’’ (Rogers458), where the hand serves as ‘‘the palm of the nation’’ (466). The Dictionnaireis published by Editions du Seuil; thus, Djebar’s name is literally on the threshold(seuil) of the French language. She is on the doorstep, not knocking, but as agatekeeper, deciding who or what (in terms of words) can enter. The seuil is alsothe brink: death’s exergue.

French words with an Arabic ‘‘echo’’ (Djebar 22) are self-reflectivemetaphors, always already in transit, having traveled to arrive in France fromelsewhere. Djebar hearing this ‘‘echo’’ recalls Spivak’s piece on Djebar, ‘‘Echo’’(1993), where Spivak takes from Djebar something of the untranslatable, and ofsilence: ‘‘Assia Djebar has written something called ‘a-phonie’’’ (Spivak 1993,28). Spivak continues: ‘‘It is thus that, between writing in French and theculturally patriarchal woman’s voice, Djebar gives to the supercolonized womanthe task of a-phonie: not a writing, not a graph, but not the phonocentricresponsibility-rather-than-rights-based patriarchal-functionalist unmediatedwoman’s voice either’’ (30). What are the stakes of this a-phonie, or non-writing? Even when Djebar names things, Spivak sees Djebar’s naming practicesand the proper name as a ‘‘ruse’’ (42).

Spivak ‘‘attend[s]’’ to Djebar’s autobiographical shards in ‘‘Acting Bits/Identity Talk’’ (1992), referring to Djebar’s L’Amour La Fantasia: ‘‘Staging herselfas an Algerian Muslim woman, [Djebar] gives a fragmented version of the graph-ing of her bio in French.’’ Spivak reads Djebar as inhabiting ‘‘[i]dentity aswound,’’ subject to ‘‘historically hegemonic languages’’ (Spivak 1992, 770).Djebar’s ‘‘double bind’’ lies in ‘‘the practice of the conqueror’s writing’’ (771).Spivak’s take on Djebar’s position in and between languages is not far from

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the ways in which Djebar sees the bilingual dictionary as a possible bridge orpedagogical tool. Djebar’s preface, an exergue to the silent text of thedictionary, is an a-phonie that contrasts with what she calls ‘‘the acoustics(sonorite) of my mother tongue’’ (Djebar 22). The dictionary form itself is agraph where words, seemingly at random, are placed one after another viaalphabetical rather than semantic order, organized by linear principles, outsideof time: the novel’s opposite. If the dictionary’s cover is Djebar’s double self-portrait, the double-language interior is a reflection of her polyglot reality.

III. Mother Tongues: Bilingual Dictionary as Pedagogy

Djebar supports the idea of a bilingual dictionary as a pedagogical tool forthe future.7 French children of Arab or Maghreb heritage caught betweentwo languages, as she sees it, can benefit from the dictionary, which shedescribes as:

a voyage of words, of ‘‘our’’ words, the ones we speak, that we write, thatare spread to the wind in our conversations, whispered in tenderness orlove. From the age of nursery school (l’ecole maternelle [which, often, is nolonger really ‘‘maternal’’ (maternelle)]), these words are swallowed anddigested, bounced off of other words, bound to envelop us, to ad-dressus (nous habiller), and ‘‘express’’ little by little our desires, our sighs.This is true today even if, in many French cities and banlieues, a numberof kids learning how to read and write—and vice versa—hear when theyget home at night, their mother addressing them in other words, in alanguage from elsewhere: Arabic or Berber from the Maghreb, or in oneof the many languages of sub-Saharan Africa, or from even furtherafield. (Djebar 17)

These children live in a linguistic situation that is different from those for whomFrench is a ‘‘first language, and even an ancestral legacy’’ (Djebar 17). Djebarmoves nimbly between the maternal and paternal, ancestry, heritage, language,and that ‘‘most fragile and often oral ‘mother’s tongue’ (langue de lait),’’ one thatoften fails to become ‘‘a touchstone for memories (un ancrage memoriel)’’ (18).‘‘Maternelle’’ school is not maternal for these children as such, since theirmother tongue is not French. Djebar puts forth Arabic as affectionate andintimate, giving it a ludic quality reserved for the language coming from themother’s tongue.8

The mother tongue is compromised, as Djebar sees it. According to JuliaKristeva, one enters into the symbolic order as language emerges as a (poor)substitute for the maternal object. There is a shuttle here too, as thetransposition of the hinged mourning/accepting site of symbolic language

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happens in language. This is to say, metaphor is activated. As Kristeva remindsus: ‘‘transpose corresponds to the Greek metaphorein, to transport; language is,from the start, a translation, but on a level that is heterogeneous to the onewhere affective loss, renunciation, or the break takes place. If I did notagree to lose mother, I could neither imagine nor name her’’ (Kristeva 41).If metaphor is transport—to carry across—Djebar’s preface speaks to a possiblebridge not only across the Mediterranean, but within France(s).

At school in France, French replaces Arabic language for these multilingualchildren, sometimes leading to ‘‘identity problems.’’ Even though these391 dictionary words, which ‘‘unveil themselves to us today,’’ only accountfor ‘‘1.5 percent of the vocabulary that [children] would need in order tomaster, to some extent, the so-called language ‘of Voltaire’’’ (Djebar 18),Djebar thinks this text will be useful in other ways. This dictionary can, forexample, give confidence to those whose first language at home is notFrench, and are made to feel inadequate at school because of it. She drawsstrength from the many scientific, medical, and astronomical words that cameto French (oftentimes first mediated through another European language) viaArabic.

Djebar nears the end of this preface and her discussion on the passagesbetween and among Arabic and French, with the astrolabe. From the Greek for‘‘star-taker’’ (OED), the astrolabe was a tool used by astronomers, astrologers,and navigators. Gathering the threads of her textured preface, she citesconstellations—words, memory, transit, occupation—but also astronomy, andactual stars. If the Mediterranean basin is a communal soup where Francophone,Arabophone, and other writers gather around, the astrolabe makes global theconstellations, as Djebar remarks how this early sky computer traveledfrom Greece, to India, through the Middle East and North Africa, and toEurope. The astrolabe is the navette’s companion, a portable planet in the formof a lexicon that moves in multiple directions.

As a girl, Djebar recalls having had a strong interest in astronomy, with her‘‘head in the stars.’’ When she first began reading this bilingual dictionary, it waswith a desire ‘‘to bring together the roots (racines) of terms used in astronomy’’(Djebar 22). Unraveling the notion of ‘‘racines’’ (roots) in words but also inidentifications and genealogies, Djebar thinks about transmission and languages,preservation and expansion, and new possibilities for French: ‘‘Once the root isrevealed, the language is rendered receptive, porous, open, through successivemutations and navigations. In other words, though fragile, it is a generouslanguage: in any case, it is rich with a vibrant memory and an energy that cannotbe extinguished’’ (24–25). She places the child between cultures, for whom sheimagines this dictionary will be useful, ‘‘on the threshold (seuil), hesitating,’’between losing a mother tongue in exchange for another tongue, between thepossibility of France both as a ‘‘chez lui’’ and ‘‘proximite’’ (25).

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IV. Conclusion: Racines d’arabe and racines des arbres:la francophonie as Archive

This dictionary, heavy and large enough to prop open a wooden door, connectsword roots and arboreal metaphors, brushing back moss from racines arabes (arabroots) to reveal racines des arbres (arboreal roots) in the ‘‘Francophone’’ archive.I want to situate francophonie itself as an archive, connecting it to its history,following Gabrielle Parker’s work, where she distinguishes between institutio-nalized Francophonie and the possibility for ‘‘solidarity’’ in francophonie (Parker101). Parker writes: ‘‘it is not unreasonable to question whether Francophonie isgenuinely post-colonial, or whether it is yet another avatar of colonialism.Francophonie remains a political organization on which France relies in order toget votes and support in international fora’’ (97). Though there is not spacefor it in this essay, moving forward from the bilingual dictionary and connectingit to notions of francophonie and the archive might consist of conceiving ofFrancophone literary output itself as an archive. The archive becomes a navettebetween the colonial and postcolonial, as well as between geographic sites offormer French colonies and the former metropole. The very notion ofFrancophonie—its naming, and where it lives—when conceived in terms of thearchive, will provide a site of haunting and trauma both inside and outside thenation.

As the first woman of North African and Muslim origin to enter theAcademie francaise, Djebar stands inside and outside the nation with twodictionaries, one in each hand, two graphs that find her waving and weaving inthose words she deems appropriate to each language’s archive and transnationalmemory. As Derrida argues in Archive Fever, s/he who controls the archivecontrols the political and the law, as well as its interpretation. The bi-lingualdictionary injects the French language with its Arabic roots, but also sendsArabic back to those who try to make a bridge—‘‘mots-passerelles’’—betweentwo languages and two lives in the former metropole. At the exergue of the law,Djebar sends the French language its phantom roots, a paper navette—light andimpossibly heavy—that floats between two continents.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ewa P. Ziarek, Patrick Crowley, Cecile Decousu, andChristine Montane for feedback on earlier versions of this article, and theIRCHSS for research support.

Notes

1 All translations are my own except where otherwise referenced.

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2 Spivak is criticized by some feminists and postcolonial critics for her over-reliance on or fidelity to deconstruction. Dispensing with old genealogieswith an eye toward displacing the patronymic, both Spivak and Djebarattempt to gather different ghosts and render archives anew, otherwise,though their methods are not always legible to one another.

3 Rapael Confiant writes (perhaps in ironic vein?) of the utopic hopefor ‘‘a worldwide francophone Academie’’ (‘‘une Academie francophonemondiale’’) which would publish a ‘‘Dictionnaire du francais mondial’’including all of the languages French touches and is altered by (Koch).

4 This pseudonym is read as ‘‘liberation’’ by two book reviewers in The NewYork Times, where Djebar is caught between parentheses with an Orientalisttwist, as they pun on the veil: ‘‘(The pseudonym, adopted as a veil ofdiscretion for a woman publishing in a Muslim society, now shields her familyin Algeria from reprisals)’’ (Camhi). And once again in another moment ofenclosure: ‘‘(she changed her name from Fatima-Zohra Imalayene in ordernot to upset [her father] when she began writing)’’ (Blume). The pseudonymis the ‘‘veil,’’ a ‘‘shield’’ to defend oneself, and the use of parentheses in bothof these descriptions is another distancing or veiling mechanism.

5 The dictionary also contains French words with etymological origins inTurkish and Farsi, but Guemriche notes in an interview with Patrice Martinthat there was not enough room on the cover to include this information(Martin).

6 Another reading of Fatima is invoked in Djebar’s Loin de Medine, which Spivaktreats in ‘‘Ghostwriting.’’

7 The connection between a pedagogy for the future and Djebar signing off onthe dictionary connects to Derrida’s notion of the signature in ‘‘SignatureEvent Context’’: ‘‘By definition, a written signature implies the actual orempirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be said, it also marks andretains his [sic] having-been present in a past now, which will remain a futurenow, and therefore in a now in general, in the transcendental form ofnowness (maintenance). This general maintenance is somehow inscribed,stapled to present punctuality, always evident and always singular, in the formof the signature’’ (328). Djebar’s signature marks a ‘‘now’’ in the past, andpoints to a hopeful future.

8 I have distinguished between ‘‘mother’s tongue’’ (langue de lait) and ‘‘mothertongue’’ (langue maternelle) in my translation, since Djebar uses two differentterms. If Djebar is using the terms to suggest they are not synonyms, perhapsshe is signaling the difference between Berber as coming from her ‘‘mother’stongue’’ (playing on ‘‘milk teeth’’), while ‘‘mother tongue’’ would beconnected to Arabic, signaling the desires of nationalist projects where bothnation and tongue are feminized. I thank Patrick Crowley for highlightingthis possible distinction. Djebar’s treatment of Arabic in this dictionarypreface works against Anne Norton’s (2011) contention that for Djebar(as well as for Helene Cixous) Arabic is ‘‘disavowed’’ (Norton).

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Blume, Mary. ‘‘Algerian Finds French a Path to Her True Self.’’ The New York Times8 December 2005. 5http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/arts/08iht-blume.html?pagewanted=all4 Consulted 24 June 2012.

Camhi, Leslie. ‘‘Discovering Liberation in French.’’ Review of So Vast the Prison, byAssia Djebar. The New York Times 4 March 2000. 5http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/04/books/discovering-liberation-in-french.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm4 Consulted 24 June 2012.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Trans. Eric Prenowitz. Chicago,IL: U of Chicago P, 1995.

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—. ‘‘Signature Event Context.’’ Margins of Philosophy. Trans. Alan Bass. London:Harvester Press, 1982: 307–330.

Djebar, Assia. Preface. ‘‘Le Voyage des mots arabes dans la langue francaise.’’Dictionnaire des mots francais d’origine arabe. By Salah Guemriche. Paris: Seuil,2007. 17–25.

Geumriche, Salah. Dictionnaire des mots francais d’origine arabe. Paris: Seuil, 2007.—. Interview with Patrice Martin. ‘‘Un Livre, un debat.’’ Medi1 Radio 10 June

2007. 5http://www.medi1.com/player/player.php?i=14995204 Consulted27 January 2012.

Kimmelman, Michael. ‘‘In an Age of Globalism, Pardon My French.’’ The New YorkTimes 21 April 2010. 5http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/arts/25abroad.html?pagewanted=all4 Consulted 26 January 2012.

Koch, Caroline. ‘‘Diversite culturelle: un combat francophone: La ‘Diversalite’selon Raphael Confiant.’’ RFI 25 May 2001. 5http://www.rfi.fr/fichiers/MFI/CultureSociete/215.asp4 Consulted 30 January 2012.

Kristeva, Julia. Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia. New York: ColumbiaU P, 1989.

Lancon, Philippe. ‘‘La Vie a deux Julia Kristeva et Philippe Sollers. Tete-a-tete.’’Liberation 5 August 1996. 5http://www.liberation.fr/portrait/0101188936-la-vie-a-deux-julia-kristeva-et-philippe-sollers-tete-a-tete4 Consulted28 January 2012.

Norton, Anne. ‘‘The Red Shoes: Islam and the Limits of Solidarity in Cixous’Mon Algeriance.’’ Theory & Event 14.1 (2011): n.p. Project MUSE. 5http://muse.jhu.edu/4 Consulted 9 June 2012.

Parker, Gabrielle. ‘‘‘Francophonie’ and ‘universalite’: Evolution of Two NotionsConjoined.’’ Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction. Eds. CharlesForsdick and David Murphy. London: Arnold, 2003. 91–101.

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Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London:Routledge, 1992.

Rogers, Amanda E. ‘‘Warding Off Terrorism and Revolution: Moroccan ReligiousPluralism, National Identity, and the Politics of Visual Culture.’’ The Journal ofNorth African Studies 17.3 (2012): 455–474.

Richter, Gerhard. Introduction. ‘‘Between Translation and Invention: ThePhotograph in Deconstruction.’’ Copy, Archive, Signature: A Conversation onPhotography. Stanford, CA: Stanford U P, 2010. ix–xxxviii.

Sansal, Boualem. ‘‘Ou est passe ma frontiere?’’ Pour une litterature-monde. Eds. MichelLe Bris and Jean Rouaud. Paris: Gallimard, 2007. 161–174.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘‘Acting Bits/Identity Talk.’’ Identities. Special issueof Critical Inquiry 18.4 (1992): 770–803.

—. ‘‘Echo,’’ Culture and Everyday Life. Special issue of New Literary History 24.1(Winter 1993): 17–43.

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Megan MacDonald is currently a postdoctoral fellow at University College Cork,

working on the collaborative project ‘‘Algeria: Nation and Transnationalism 1988–

2010’’ supported by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences

(IRCHSS). Her research interests include postcolonial Francophone literature from the

Maghreb, theorizing a transnational Mediterranean navette, and the work of Jacques

Derrida and Gayatri Spivak.

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