History in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928)‎ and Assia Djebar’s L’Amour, la fantasia (1985)‎ : between distanciation and appropriation

Abstract FRE

This article explores the representation of history in Virginia Woolf‘s Orlando: A Biography and Assia Djebar‘s L’Amour, la fantasia as a form of discussion of historical discourse.

Starting with the two writers‘ relation with, and conception of, history, I have analyzed, in the light of Paul Ricoeur‘s concept of appropriation and distanciation, the ways history is read, incorporated, and discussed in their novels.

The analysis concludes that in their reading, reassessment and rewriting of history, Woolf and Djebar produce fictionalized counter-historical narratives.

Of a view that history cannot be really objective and that archives cannot be considered as objective and neutral sources, they question the possibility for history to be the sole source of knowledge of the past, and, hence, fictionalize it.