Seeds of change : Assia Djebar’s les enfants du nouveau monde children of the new world: a novel of the Algerian war

Abstract FRE

Examining Djebar’s third novel, Les Enfants du nouveau monde, (Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War), her first to depict the Algerian Revolution, I argue that it not only reveals the political, feminist, and aesthetic elements that define her later work, but is a wellcrafted text that is politically correct in its anti-colonial stance, subversive in its feminist objectives; it expresses Djebar’s belief that Algerian independence alone will not liberate women.

The novelist discerns a significant gender gap regarding the goals of liberation: Algerian men struggle against French colonialism, women seek agency within their family and society and political independence from France.

In my analysis, I ground the text historically (Amrane-Minne), and apply anti-colonial and feminist theory (Fanon; Mernissi).