Algeria's linguistic trauma and the subversion in mosteghanemi's translations of Dhakirat al-Jassad

Abstract EN

Algeria’s colonial history (1830-1962) instigated linguistic dislocation which was and still is to the core of identity crisis.

This paper attempts to examine the unapologetic ubiquity of French and frenchified Arabic in postcolonial Algeria.

It also highlights the ambivalence as regards staunch resistance to the colonizer’s language and concurrent commodification of the postcolonial condition through translation into the Other’s language.

Mosteghanemi’s translations of Dhakirat al-Jassad, blasé of Algerians’ sensibil ity as regards national matters, are read in relation to cultural loss and prestige