Vol. 2 ˇ No. 1 ˇ Spring 2002 ˇ pp. 5-20 (16)

Hegemony and hybridity in Assia Djebar's Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement, L'Amour, la fantasia and Oran, langue morte

Ana de Medeiros

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Abstract

In L'An V de la révolution algérienne (1959) Frantz Fanon offers an alternative to western accounts of the colonial and post-colonial era of Algerian history. One of his most interesting insights concerns the relationship between French hegemony, Algerian traditions, and the role of women within Algerian society. For he argues forcefully that, faced with the problem of how to assimilate a recently conquered nation, the colonizers, who viewed women as the linchpin (le pivot) of Algerian society, tried to change the nation by westernizing its women: