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Breaking the silence: Beurwriters impose their voiceKathryn Lay-ChenchabiPublished online: 19 Aug 2006.

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Contemporary French and Francophone StudiesVol. 10, No. 1, January 2006, pp. 97–104

BREAKING THE SILENCE: BEUR

WRITERS IMPOSE THEIR VOICE

Kathryn Lay-Chenchabi

With an introduction by Jacqueline Dutton

In the absence of Dr. Kathryn Lay-Chenchabi’s supervisor, Dr. Bernadette Dejeande la Batie, I would like to offer a brief introduction that may serve to contextualizeher work.

Dr. Kathryn Lay-Chenchabi’s PhD thesis, Destroying the Silence: Beur writers seek avoice, was received enthusiastically by Australian and international specialists in the field.Her work on Beur writers is an original contribution to understanding a diverse and richlyvariegated corpus, including some little studied texts which have been shown to play animportant role in the construction of a complex and dynamic identity through literature.

In addition, she has participated in the renewal of a research agenda that, contraryto some more pessimistic interpretations, did not wax and wane before the turn of theMillennium. The subject of Beur writing has accumulated interest and praise over the pasttwenty years, and continues to provoke debate in French and Francophone studies aroundthe world. Consequently, during the course of her candidature, Lay-Chenchabi was obligedto take into account a developing and expanding corpus, as well as concurrent advances inmethodological tools and criticism.

Building on this foundation study of Beur literature, Lay-Chenchabi has alreadybegun to publish articles based on chapters from her thesis. She is also continuing to pushthe research agenda in new directions, from perceptions of war in the Beur text to filmicexpressions of silence in Maghrebi narratives.

The overview of her thesis that is presented here is a revealing indication of the depthof her research to date. After introducing the corpus, from its genesis in the early 1980s toits validation towards the end of the Millennium, Lay-Chenchabi traces the majordevelopmental stages of the writings—the initial efforts to break the silence, followed bythe struggle to find an appropriate voice. Her article then goes on to highlight theprincipal areas of analysis that demonstrate the particular strategies of specific authors

ISSN 1740-9292 (print)/ISSN 1740-9306 (online)/06/010097–8 � 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17409290500429285

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and suggests new ways of reading these texts. By concluding with a statement on theongoing presence and influence of Beur writers in the construction of French history,society and identity, Lay-Chenchabi returns to one of the greatest paradoxes of allpostcolonial literatures: the dilemma of reconciling identity and integration in a contextwhich only appears to value a contribution that enriches the dominant culture.

The Beur phenomenon grew out of social conditions in France and‘‘mediatization’’ of the ‘‘Marche des Beurs.’’ Durmelat suggests that it wascreated by the media and that, in fact, a Beur community never existed. What isclear, however, is that it was the invention of the term which opened the wayfor the emergence of Beur writings and gave them some legitimacy. When Beurtexts first emerged in the 1980s, most critics described the phenomenon astransitory, emphasizing the uncertainty regarding the future of this literature.A question mark was raised as to whether this literature would continue tothrive or whether it would disappear, as a result of the change in the situation ofthe authors who were expected to integrate into French society. My study tracesthe evolution of these texts, to examine whether the phenomenon continuedand, if so, whether this was accompanied by an evolution in terms of themes andliterary creation over the decade and a half since the emergence of the textsduring the ‘‘prise de parole period’’ of the eighties until the turn of the century.I examine the debates which occurred at the inception of the texts, one of themain questions being that of where to place the texts: were they French orAlgerian? This echoes of course the dilemma facing the authors themselves at thetime: were they to be identified as French or Algerian? The creation of the word‘‘Beur’’ was an attempt to liberate its inventors, freeing them of the need todefine themselves as either Arab or French. However, at the same time itdivested them of their past in that it obscured their origin. Indeed, the word‘‘Beur’’ has been problematic since its appearance, as is the very process ofnaming. Rather than be confined within a category imposed by others, many ofthe authors choose to leave their identity vague and give their narrators theambiguity of a first name which does not mark them as Arab or French (Begag’sBeni in Beni ou le paradis prive or Imache’s Lila in Une fille sans histoire) or leavethem nameless, as with Belghoul’s narrator in Georgette!

Another question that arose was how to define the corpus of Beur writings:should they be defined in terms of authorship, that is those written byBeur writers, as Hargreaves suggests, or by content, as suggested by Laronde(Autour du roman beur)? I have chosen to define the corpus of Beur texts as thoseworks written by those authors of Maghrebi origin who were born or had grownup in France.

One of the most important questions that was constantly posed in relationto these texts was whether they were in fact literature. At the time ofpublication of the first texts, most were dismissed as mere ‘‘temoignage’’ with

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little literary value. My study examines the literary strategies used by theauthors, and confirms what is revealed by the growing number of articlesappearing in scholarly journals (see Laronde, L’ecriture decentree; Delvaux,Ireland, and Rosello): many of the writings by Beur authors are indeed worthyof consideration as literary texts.

My thesis is divided into two parts, the first entitled ‘‘Breaking the Silence,’’the second, ‘‘Finding a Voice.’’ As this division suggests, two periods can bedistinguished, the ‘‘prise de parole’’/ revelatory period of the eighties, and thesecond period, the nineties, during which certain authors emerged as writers.In the first part of my study, ‘‘Breaking the silence,’’ I raise the questionsof ‘‘speaking up’’ and ‘‘speaking out.’’ Central to these notions are questionsof ‘‘speaking for oneself’’ and ‘‘speaking for others,’’ of ‘‘speaking the truth’’ and‘‘speaking ‘back.’’’ The word ‘‘breaking’’ implies violence and my study examinesthe violence of certain texts, and the strategies used by the authors to imposetheir voice.

The early novels are clearly revelatory texts, uncovering the truth of the‘‘cites,’’ for example, Mehdi Charef’s Le The au Harem d’Archi Ahmed, or AzouzBegag’s depiction of life in the ‘‘bidonville’’ in which he grew up in Le Gone duChaaba. The works reveal the cultural conflict of the young Beur child, forced tochoose between cultures which are seen to be at odds with each other. This isespecially true of Farida Belghoul’s Georgette! The notion of betrayal of thecollective in the pursuit of individual survival in French society lies at the heartof Belghoul’s novel and is a constant theme in Begag’s writings. Indeed it couldbe seen to be the major theme. Interestingly, the notion of betrayal is absentfrom the writing of ‘‘beurettes’’ (whose narrators are older than that ofGeorgette!), such as those by Leila Hourai (Zeida de nulle part), Ferrudja Kessas(Beur’s story), and Soraya Nini (Ils disent que je suis une beurette). These youngwomen of North African descent seek only to reveal their situation and alsoperhaps to get revenge on their brothers who are responsible for enforcing thecode of honor and therefore of preventing the young girls from functioning fullyin French society. In most cases, however, the authors are driven to reveal theconditions in which they have lived in order that their story not be lost tohistory; yet at the same time, they are ridden with feelings of guilt and betrayal.As children of North African immigrants they are positioned ‘‘on the border’’both literally and figuratively, geographically (residing for the most part on theperiphery of the big cities) and culturally. Occupying a space between the Frenchsociety outside the home and the Maghrebi culture contained within the family,it is the children who have made the link between the public and the privatespheres. In a reversal of the traditional role of parents and children, it is theywho have interpreted and ‘‘translated’’ French society for their parents.Similarly, they have ‘‘translated’’ the reality of a child of North African origingrowing up in France for a (supposedly) French readership. Translation,although providing a bridge between cultures also, however, implies reduction

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of the original. As translators, the Beurs allow access to a previously inaccessiblereality, but at the same time risk reducing that reality, betraying it in a sense.Thus, at the core of these writings there lies a deep sense of ambivalence andtension: the desire to expose a certain reality and the fear of betraying both thereality and the community.

Perhaps as a way of expiating feelings of guilt, many speak not only forthemselves, but for others in their community. Indeed all Beur writers have atsome point chosen to speak for others, to take on, not only the individual cause,but also the collective one. Sebkhi has described the writing as having ‘‘unesignature autobiographique collective’’ (32). The children of North Africanimmigrants are in a privileged position compared with their forebears. Whereastheir parents are illiterate and powerless, they consider it a duty to speak of theplight of the latter, thus rescuing it from being wiped from history (Chevillot639). The writings can be perceived therefore as an homage to the pastgeneration, the parents who have suffered displacement, dislocation, humiliationand racism in silence. A clear example of the desire to record the experiences ofthe older generation is the recurrence of references (among them, NacerKettane’s Le Sourire de Brahim, Akli Tadjer’s Les A.N.I. du ‘‘Tassili’’, and TassaditImache’s Une fille sans histoire) to the notorious demonstration of 17 October1961 in which many Algerians were attacked by the French police andsubsequently drowned in the River Seine.

For Mounsi in Memoires d’outre-ville, speaking for others is an attempt toremember the forgotten, not only immigrants, but the underclass inhabiting theshadows of the big cities. For Ahmed Kalouaz, it is an inclusion, a recognition ofthose who are voiceless, a woman trapped in a violent marriage in L’Encre d’unfait divers or, as in Point kilometrique 190, the victim of a racist crime. For Charef,in Le Harki de Meriem it is a kind of explanation of how many Beurs, children of‘‘harkis,’’ the truly forgotten of the Franco-Algerian war, came to be in France.Equally, both Leila Houari in Quand tu verras la mer and Akli Tadjer in Les A.N.I du‘‘Tassili’’ have used multiple voices and viewpoints in their writings.

One of the ways that the authors allow the parents’ voice to be heard isthrough dialogue which reproduces phonetically their speech patterns. This isthe case in Begag’s writings, but also in the novels by Belghoul, Tadjer andCharef. The comic effect may suggest that it is at the expense of the speakers,but in fact, it is in these passages that the speech is given an existence and alegitimacy. The speaker’s voice can be heard echoing through the text. In all ofthese texts, the writing is driven by a dual intent in that it speaks for both theindividual and the collective. In this way, the parents’ history is fixed in writingand their voice is given legitimacy. My objective as a reader has been to hear allof the voices present.

In their struggle for control of the means of representation, Beur writersuse various literary strategies. My work, using the tools of postcolonialcriticism, analyses the resistance tactics used. One of the major themes is the

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metaphor of reversal. This implies both ‘‘turning things around,’’ that is, puttingthings right, and ‘‘turning the tables,’’ and is indeed appropriate in this context(the word ‘‘Beur’’ itself derives from a reversal of syllables). Reversal can beunderstood here as ‘‘writing back’’ in the sense given by Ashcroft et al. in TheEmpire Writes Back. Since Beur writers have consistently displayed attitudes ofambivalence towards both of their cultural sources, writing ‘‘back’’ or resistancetakes many forms in the texts of this corpus. It is violent (Kalouaz, L’Encre d’unfait divers), provocative (Mounsi, Boukhedenna), or oppositional in the sensegiven by Ross Chambers (21). Oppositional narratives are those that use thecharacteristics of power against the power for one’s own purposes. Many of thewriters in question have used the literary strategies of irony, parody, subversionof stereotypes and reversal of gaze. The use of irony and parody are significanthere since both require the knowledge of the discourse of power whichis present within the parody. Azouz Begag and Akli Tadjer in particular use ironyand parody. The effect is humorous and serves not only to smooth thingsover, but is used as an oppositional practice, a way, precisely, of maintainingdignity, of refusing the category of victim which others may wish to assign tothem. In this way these authors subvert racial, cultural and also, textualstereotypes (as in Tadjer’s parody of La Fontaine’s fable in Les ANI du ‘‘Tassili’’).However, it is in their use of language that they most strongly assert theiridentity.

Language in Beur writings is a crucial element of their self-assertion. Mystudy examines the different ways in which Beur writers use language to imposetheir cultural experience in writing. The writers’ position as both insider andoutsider, of knowledge of the dominant language, allows them to subvert it fromwithin. Known expressions are transformed through hybridization, and thus areowned by their user. Begag’s writing contains many examples of hybridconstructions as defined by Bakhtin, that is, that utterances belonging to a singlespeaker actually contain two semantic and axiological systems (304). Thus,Begag appropriates the French language and uses it to his own ends.The transgressions of language in both Begag and Tadjer are clearly pleasurablefor their authors, as was the use of ‘‘verlan’’ at the outset.

A tactic that is frequently used is word-for-word translations from Arabic,or ‘‘calques,’’ which retain the foreignness of the Beur’s speech while imposing acertain type of speech; by allowing it to appear in the written form it is includedas a kind of dialect of French. Another type of hybridization used by Begag iscode-switching between registers, between the familiar and the strange, thesubverting of stereotypical expressions by placing them out of context, or by theaddition of an ironical ending. In this way Begag subverts accepted notions,revealing cliches for what they are. It is a survival tactic which enables him totame the oppressor’s language, make it his own and reverse the relations ofpower. In addition, it allows for ambiguity and ambivalence and, as such, rejectsa binary definition of identity.

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Other writers have chosen a more confrontational approach, in particular,Farida Belghoul in Georgette!, Ahmed Kalouaz, Sakinna Boukhedenna and Mounsi,through the use of violent language. The extreme violence of Belghoul’s textderives in fact from the clash of two languages, that taught at school and that usedat home. The young narrator, bombarded with contradictory information fromboth sides, refuses to make a choice between the two languages (and cultures).Language is double-edged: it gives the narrator a means to express herself, whileforcing her to renounce herself (in the sense that expressing herself in French isthe death of her Arab identity). The text rambles chaotically, following the streamof consciousness and the association of ideas, with brutal images and metaphors.The violence of cultural conflict is experienced so deeply that the child is markedwithin her body: the writing flows from the inside. This ‘‘writing the body’’ hasbeen characterized as a mark of ‘‘ecriture feminine,’’ and for this reason it issurprising to encounter it in the first novel of Ahmed Kalouaz, L’Encre d’un faitdivers. Kalouaz’ narrator is a woman who has used violence against her brutalhusband. By means of writing that expresses itself initially through violence thenarrator finds words to create life. Kalouaz’ objective here is to resurrect stifledvoices to allow them to echo through his text.

The writer Mounsi uses language in a different way to assert his perspective:his tactic is to master and use to his own ends the master’s language. His openingparagraph in his first work, La Noce des fous, contains a surfeit of subjunctives inwhich he ‘‘shows off’’ his mastery. However, this usage is undermined by theintroduction of colloquialisms within the formal text. Thus ‘‘high and low’’styles are hybridized. Mounsi does not ‘‘violate’’ the language, as others havedone, but possesses it through mastery of the formal literary forms, whilemaintaining a neutral position through parody.

The experimentation with language can be contrasted with another majortheme recurring in these texts: silence. Many of the writers seek to recover apast that is shrouded in silence through the retrieval of memories as a means toconstructing identity. The process of uncovering the past leads to a process ofrecovery, both in the sense of recovery of lost memories and in the therapeuticsense of recovery from pain and absence. Writing of the past is reliving theseexperiences, allowing the authors to bring them back and also to communicatethem to others. The reconstruction of memories through the text allows theauthor not only to discover his or her identity, but in fact to construct it. In Unefille sans histoire by Tassadit Imache, the adult narrator re-invokes the child’sperspective of the events of the 60s during the final phases of the Algerian war.Due to the hostility between her parents, an Algerian father and a Frenchmother, and the context in which this hostility is experienced, the child existsin limbo, without a past or any cultural baggage to which she can attach herself.By writing the story that has never been told, Imache attempts to bring togetherthese two parts into a unified whole. Exploring her identity through remember-ing, from her two ‘‘dis-membered’’ parts, Imache’s narrator constructs a whole.

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Like Imache, Kalouaz, through writing, creates a space in which he can makelinks with his past, and especially with his father (Lecons d’absence and De Barceloneau silence). Similarly, Mounsi’s return to the past over four works, culminates inLe Voyage des ames, in which the narrator’s evocation of his childhood in Kabyliatakes on a dream-like, timeless, ritualistic quality. Dream and reality areblended: the true memory of the traumatic experience of the child being takenfrom his village to go to France has been blotted out and the narrator isattempting to recreate it through the writing process. Other writers, too, evokethe past through a return to the source: Leila Houari in Zeida de nulle part,Mehdi Charef in Le harki de Meriem and Djura in La Saison des Narcisses. My studyshows that those who have used memory have, in the process of identityconstruction, come closer, through their writing, to what Francoise Lionnet hastermed ‘‘metissage,’’ that is a space of culturally mixed and positively hybridizedwriting. Many of these authors have attempted to integrate their Arab andFrench sides, creating a new space which is that, no longer of ‘‘ni Francais,ni Arabe’’ but ‘‘et Francais et Arabe.’’ In other words, to transform a position of‘‘insider/outsider,’’ into a position of power.

Writing, for a number of these authors, has allowed them to writethemselves out of their condition as Beurs to forge an identity as a writer.Although a desire for integration is a common element in the works, the writersdemand integration on their own terms. By bringing their perspective andvariations into the French language, not only is the language transformed, butalso the view of what it is to be French. My study shows that Beur writers haveindeed continued to write into the new millennium and that, in so doing, theyhave written a part of France’s history.

Works Cited

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. London:Routledge, 1989.

Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: U of Texas P, 1981.Begag, Azouz. Le Gone du Chaaba. Paris: Le Seuil, 1986.—, Beni ou le paradis prive. Paris: Le Seuil, 1989.Belghoul, Farida. Georgette!. Paris: Barrault, 1986.Boukhedenna, Sakinna. Journal. ‘‘Nationalite: immigre(e). Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987.Chambers, Ross. Room For Manoeuver : Reading (the) Oppositional (in) Narrative. Chicago

and London: U of Chicago P, 1991.Charef, Mehdi. Le the au harem d’Archi Ahmed. Paris: Mercure de France, 1983.—, Le harki de Meriem. Paris: Mercure de France, 1989.Chevillot, Frederique. ‘‘Beurette suis et beurette ne veux pas toujours etre: Entretien

d’ete avec Tassadit Imache.’’ The French Review 71.4 (1998): 632–643.Delvaux, Martine. ‘‘L’ironie du sort: le tiers espace de la litterature beure.’’

The French Review 68.4 (1995) : 681–693.

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Djura. La saison des Narcisses. Paris: Michel Lafon, 1993.Durmelat, Sylvie. ‘‘L’invention de la ‘culture beur.’’’ Diss. University of

Michigan, 1995.Hargreaves, Alec. Voices from the North African Community in France. Oxford: Berg,

1991.Houari, Leila. Zeida de nulle part. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1985.—, Quand tu verras la mer. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988.Imache, Tassadit. Une fille sans histoire. Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1989.Ireland, Susan. ‘‘Rewriting the Story in Tassadit Imache’s Une fille sans histoire.’’

Women in French Studies 3 (1995): 112–122.Kalouz, Ahmed. L’encre d’un fait divers. Paris: Arcantere, 1984.—, Point kilometrique 190. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1986.—, Lecons d’absence. Paris: Noel Blandin, 1992.—, De Barcelone au silence. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994.Kessas, Ferruja. Beur’s Story. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1990.Kettane, Nacer. Le sourire de Brahim. Paris: Denoel, 1985.Laronde, Michel. Autour du roman beur: immigration et identite. Paris:

L’Harmattan, 1993.—, L’ecriture decentree: la langue de l’autre dans le roman contemporain. Paris:

L’Harmattan, 1996.Lionnet, Francoise. ‘‘Logiques metisses.’’ Post-Colonial Subjects: Francophone Women

Writers. Ed. Mary Jean Green. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. 321–343.Mounsi. La Noce des fous. Paris: Stock, 1990.—, Territoire d’outre-ville. Paris: Stock, 1995.—, Le voyage des ames. Paris: Stock, 1997.Nini, Soraya. Ils dissent que je suis une beurette. Paris: Fixot, 1993.Rosello, Mireille. ‘‘The Beur Nation: Towards a Theory of Departenance.’’

Research in African Literatures 24:3 (1993): 13–24.Sebkhi, Habiba. ‘‘Une literature ‘naturelle’: le cas de la litterature ‘beur.’’’

Intineraires et contacts de cultures 27 (1999): 24–44.Tadjer, Akli. Les A.N.I. du ‘‘Tassili.’’ Paris: Le Seuil, 1984.

Kathryn Lay-Chenchabi was awarded a PhD in 1993 for her thesis entitled,

‘‘Destroying the Silence: the Beurs write back.’’ She currently teaches French at the

University of Melbourne, Australia, and has had several articles published in the area

of Beur writing.

Jacqueline Dutton is a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of

Melbourne, Australia. She has written on utopian theory and literature, travel writing,

intercultural communication and French-Australian cultural studies, and has recently

published Le Chercheur d’or et d’ailleurs: l’utopie de J.M.G. Le Clezio (Paris:

L’Harmattan, 2003). Her current research focuses on French visions of Australia as

utopia and comparative utopias in Japanese and French art and literature.

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