Remnants of Empire in Algeria and Vietnam: Women, Words, and War (After the Empire)

178 Pages·2004·0.59 MB·English

by  Pamela A. Pears

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Literary Criticism • Francophone Studies
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After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France
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Series Editor: Valérie Orlando, Illinois Wesleyan University
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“In this truly original project, Pears shows the role that four important women
writers have played in confronting the legacies of colonialism and the wars of
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national liberation. Focusing on novels caught in the flows of nations and
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empires, Pears offers a new perspective on the postcolonial world by showing
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with the utmost conviction and skill the role literature plays in launching new
demands for equality.” N
—Philip Watts, Associate Professor and Chair,
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Department of French and Italian, University of Pittsburgh
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REMNANTS
“Pamela Pears has written a compelling study of Algerian and Vietnamese T
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Francophone women’s writing. As she aptly notes, women, words, and war are

the vestiges of the colonial empire that France secured in the nineteenth cen-
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tury and lost in the twentieth. Cultural influences survive political and military OF EMPIRE
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struggles. These writers use the French language and innovative narrative tech-

niques to express the complex nature of the postcolonial female subject.” E
—Mildred Mortimer, Professor of French and Francophone Studies, M
University of Colorado, Boulder IN ALGERIA
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In Remnants of Empire in Algeria and Vietnam: Women, Words, and War, R
Pamela A. Pears proposes a new approach to Francophone studies. The work E
uses postcolonial theory, along with gender and feminist inquiries, to emphasize AND VIETNAM
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the connections between two Francophone literatures, Algerian and N
Vietnamese. Specifically, Pears focuses on four novels: Yamina Mechakra’s La
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Grotte éclatée, Ly Thu Ho’s Le Mirage de la paix, Malika Mokeddem’s L’Interdite,
and Kim Lefèvre’s Retour à la saison des pluies. All four novels show the pro- L
found transformation of women’s roles in Algeria and Vietnam during and fol- G Women, Words, and War
lowing the presence of French colonialism, yet these four authors never attempt E
to unfold a clear and single definition of the postcolonial female subject. R
Instead, they explore the various subjective possibilities, expand on them, and I
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ultimately place them in question. Although the differences between Algeria

and Vietnam are striking, it is through their connections to one another that we A
can define the territory of postcolonial gender issues. Whereas geographical
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boundaries and official nationalities serve as divisive classifications, the links
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between these works lead us to a much more engaging dialogue with and
ultimate understanding of postcolonial Francophone literature.
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Pamela A. Pearsis Assistant Professor of French at Washington College. E
T Pamela A. Pears
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For orders and information please contact the publisher A
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Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706
1-800-462-6420 • www.lexingtonbooks.com

R E M N A N T S O F
E M P I R E I N A L G E R I A
A N D V I E T N A M
After the Empire:
The Francophone World and Postcolonial France
Series Editor
Valérie Orlando, Illinois Wesleyan University
Advisory Board
Robert Bernasconi, Memphis University
Alec Hargreaves, Florida State University
Chima Korieh, Central Michigan University
Françoise Lionnet, UCLA
Obioma Nnaemeka, Indiana University
Kamal Salhi, University of Leeds
Tracy D. Sharpley-Whiting, Hamilton College
Frank Ukadike, Tulane University
Dedicated to the promotion of intellectual thought on and about the Fran-
cophone world, After the Empire publishes original works that explore the
arts, politics, history, and culture that have developed in complex negotiations
with the French colonial influence. The series also looks at the Hexagon and
its borders, and at the transgressions of those borders that problematize no-
tions of French identity and expression.
Of Suffocated Hearts and Tortured Souls: Seeking Subjecthood through
Madness in Francophone Women’s Writing of Africa and the
Caribbean, by Valérie Orlando
Francophone Post-Colonial Cultures: Critical Essays,edited by Kamal Salhi
In Search of Shelter: Subjectivity and Spaces of Loss in the Fiction of
Paule Constant, by Margot Miller
French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race,
edited by Tyler Stovall and Georges Van Den Abbeele
After the Deluge: New Perspectives on Postwar French Intellectual and
Cultural History, edited by Julian Bourg with an Afterword by
François Dosse
Remnants of Empire in Algeria and Vietnam: Women, Words, and War, by
Pamela A. Pears
Packaging Post/Coloniality: The Manufacture of Literary Identity in the
Francophone World, by Richard Watts
R E M N A N T S O F
E M P I R E I N
A L G E R I A A N D
V I E T N A M
Women,Words, and War
Pamela A. Pears
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham•Boulder•New York •Toronto •Oxford
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Published in the United States of America
by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
PO Box 317
Oxford
OX2 9RU, UK
Copyright © 2004 by Lexington Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pears, Pamela A., 1971–
Remnants of empire in Algeria and Vietnam : women, words, and war / Pamela A.
Pears.
p. cm. — (After the empire)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7391-0831-X (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Algerian fiction (French)—Women authors—History and criticism. 2.
Vietnamese fiction (French)—Women authors—History and criticism. 3.
Postcolonialism in literature. 4. Women in literature. 5.
Postcolonialism—Algeria. 6. Postcolonialism—Vietnam. 7. Women and
literature—Algeria. 8. Women and literature—Vietnam. I. Title. II. Series.
PQ3988.5.A5P43 2004
843'.91409358—dc22
2004012216
Printed in the United States of America
∞
™The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
For Florence Lucille Welton

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
1 Framing,Defining,and Questioning 1
2 Making the Link 27
3 War 57
4 Postwar Fragmentation 99
Afterword 145
Bibliography 149
Index 159
About the Author 163
vii