A Sister to Scheherazade

Isma and Hajila are both wives of the same man, but they are not rivals. 
 Isma - older, vibrant, passionate, emancipated - is in stark contrast to the passive, cloistered Hajila. In alternating chapters, Isma tells her own story in the first person, and then Hajila's in the second person. She details how she escaped from the traditional restraints imposed upon the women of her country - and how, in making her escape, she condemns Hajila to those very restraints. When Hajila catches a glimpse of an unveiled woman, she realized that she, too, wants a life beyond the veil, and it is Isma who offers her the key to her own freedom.

Literature & Fiction

Djebar, Assia

Contemporary

Heinemann

In this stunning novel, Assia Djebar intertwines the history of her native Algeria with episodes from the life of a young girl in a story stretching from the French conquest in 1830 to the War of Liberation of the 1950s. The girl, growing up in the old Roman coastal town of Cherchel, sees her life in contrast to that of a neighboring French family, and yearns for more than law and tradition allow her to experience. Headstrong and passionate, she escapes from the cloistered life of her family to join her brother in the maquis' fight against French domination. Djebar's exceptional descriptive powers bring to life the experiences of girls and women caught up in the dual struggle for independence - both their own and Algeria's.

Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade

Genre Fiction

Quartet Books Ltd.

Tells the story of how two wives of the same man escape from the traditional restraints imposed upon the women of their country.

The cloth edition of Assia Djebar's Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, her first work to be published in English, was named by the American Literary Translators Association as an ALTA Outstanding Translation of the Year. Now available in paperback, this collection of three long stories, three short ones, and a theoretical postface by one of North Africa's leading writers depicts the plight of urban Algerian women who have thrown off the shackles of colonialism only to face a postcolonial regime that denies and subjugates them even as it celebrates the liberation of men. Denounced in Algeria for its political criticism, Djebar's book quickly sold out its first printing of 15,000 copies in France and was hugely popular in Italy. Her stylistically innovative, lyrical stories address the cloistering of women, the implications of reticence, the connection of language to oppression, and the impact of war on both women and men. The Afterword by Clarisse Zimra includes an illuminating interview with Djebar.

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French)

Literary

University of Virginia Press

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (Caribbean and African Literature)

Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War (Women Writing the Middle East)

Assia Djebar, one of the most distinguished woman writers to emerge from the Arab world, wrote Children of the New World following her own involvement in the Algerian resistance to colonial French rule. Like the classic film The Battle of Algiersenjoying renewed interest in the face of world eventsDjebar’s novel sheds light on current world conflicts as it reveals a determined Arab insurgency against foreign occupation, from the inside out. However, Djebar focuses on the experiences of women drawn into the politics of resistance. Her novel recounts the interlocking lives of women in a rural Algerian town who find themselves joined in solidarity and empower each other to engage in the fight for independence. Narrating the resistance movement from a variety of perspectivesfrom those of traditional wives to liberated students to political organizersDjebar powerfully depicts the circumstances that drive oppressed communities to violence and at the same time movingly reveals the tragic costs of war.

The Feminist Press at CUNY

Assia Djebar, the most distinguished woman writer to emerge from the Arab world—and a top candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature—wrote Children of the New World following her own involvement in the Algerian resistance to colonial French rule. This long-overdue first English translation coincides with the 50th anniversary of the start of the Algerian war and with the growing insurgency in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.
Like the classic film The Battle of Algiers—enjoying renewed interest in the face of world events—Djebar’s novel sheds light on current world conflicts as it reveals a determined Arab insurgency against foreign occupation, from the inside out.
However, Djebar focuses on the experiences of women drawn into the politics of resistance. Her novel recounts the interlocking lives of women in a rural Algerian town who find themselves joined in solidarity and empower each other to engage in the fight for independence. Narrating the resistance movement from a variety of perspectives—from those of traditional wives to liberated students to political organizers—Djebar powerfully depicts the circumstances that drive oppressed communities to violence and at the same time movingly reveals the tragic costs of war.
Renowned writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar has authored several novels, including the critically lauded So Vast the Prison and Algerian White. She has won several awards for her work, including the prestigious International Neustadt Prize for Literature. Born and raised in Algeria, Djebar is currently the Silver Chair of French at New York University.
Marjolijn de Jager, PhD, is the translator of Djebar’s Algerian White and Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, which was honored by the American Literary Translators Association. She teaches at the Center for Foreign Languages and Translation at New York University.

In Algerian White, Assia Djebar weaves a tapestry of the epic and bloody ongoing struggle in her country between Islamic fundamentalism and the post-colonial civil society. Many Algerian writers and intellectuals have died tragically and violently since the 1956 struggle for independence. They include three beloved friends of Djebar: Mahfoud Boucebi, a psychiatrist; M'Hamed Boukhobza, a sociologist; and Abdelkader Alloula, a dramatist; as well as Albert Camus. In Algerian White, Djebar finds a way to meld the personal and the political by describing in intimate detail the final days and hours of these and other Algerian men and women, many of whom were murdered merely because they were teachers, or writers, or students. Yet, for Djebar, they cannot be silenced. They continue to tell stories, smile, and endure through her defiant pen. Both fiction and memoir, Algerian White describes with unerring accuracy the lives and deaths of those whose contributions were cut short, and then probes even deeper into the meaning of friendship through imagined conversations and ghostly visitations.

Algerian White

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Seven Stories Press

Algerian White: A Narrative

What happens when catastrophe becomes an everyday occurrence? Each of the seven stories in Assia Djebar’s The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry reaches into the void where normal and impossible realities coexist. All the stories were written in 1995 and 1996—a time when, by official accounts, some two hundred thousand Algerians were killed in Islamist assassinations and government army reprisals. Each story grew from a real conversation on the streets of Paris between the author and fellow Algerians about what was happening in their native land. Contemporary events are joined on the page by classical themes in Arab literature, whether in the form of Berber texts sung by the women of the Mzab or the tales from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry beautifully explores the conflicting realities of the role of women in the Arab world. With renowned and unparalleled skill, Assia Djebar gives voice to her longing for a world she has put behind her.

The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories

Essays & Correspondence

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Djebar, Assia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Djebar, Assia

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Djebar, Assia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

A Sister to Scheherazade

Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade

A Sister to Scheherazade

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (CARAF Books: Caribbean and African Literature Translated from French)

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (Caribbean and African Literature)

Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War (Women Writing the Middle East)

Children of the New World: A Novel of the Algerian War (Women Writing the Middle East)

Algerian White

Algerian White: A Narrative

The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories