Feminising the literary language in the novels of Ahlam Mosteghanemi

Abstract EN

Since language and literature are generated by a patriarchal socio-cultural system which marginalises the feminine voice, women writers experimented with new techniques to destabilise the masculine linguistic and literary realm and establish their own feminine literary dominion.

Drawing on the theories of Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva, I shall discuss in this paper how the Algerian novelist Ahlam Mosteghanemi adopts an approach to language which produces writing that is feminine.

In her novels, Dhakirat al-Jasad and Fawda al-Hawas, Mosteghanemi attempts to restore to the literary language its irrational “Semiotic” feminine character through her use of poetic language and cyclical narrative.