Between invertible and invertebrate histories : the evolution of Rachid Boudjedra’s snail-man

Abstract EN

Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s conceptualization of the human-animal split and the extent to which the end of history can undo the operations that maintain it, this article examines the relationship the narrator of Rachid Boudjedra’s The Obstinate Snail establishes with a garden snail.

The article proposes that this relationship is a manifestation not only of the processes of becoming-animal the narrator undergoes, but also of instances of ends of history in the novel.

The narrator’s perception of history, as the article demonstrates, resonates with Agamben’s theorization of messianism, disrupts the chronological continuum of history, and recreates the potentiality to reimagine an intrinsic animality.