DREAM OF EXILE, PROMISE OF HOME: LANGUAGE, EDUCATION, AND ARABISM IN ALGERIA

Abstract

AbstractIn Algeria as in many other cases, experiences of exile and diaspora played a major role in the creation of nationalist politics in the 20th century; exile has also been a recurring literary figure in expressions of Algerian cultural politics since independence. This article examines a range of literary sources to consider the politics of language and culture in Algeria since the 1940s. It shows how identification with Arabism has enabled Algerians to articulate claims to community, solidarity, and sovereignty, first in a conception of national “salvation” against the colonial state and then as both a state-sponsored project of political legitimacy and an indication of the limits of that project. A sense of these limits can be gained by a brief consideration of the complexity of the country's sociolinguistic landscape and the often unorthodox creativity of its literary self-expression since independence.