Oscillating Djebarian Novel: Autobiography and Autofiction in Assia Djebar's An Algerian Cavalcade

Abstract

To say that the simplest definition of an autobiography involves a person writing about their own life would not be wrong. However, this genre, which is also referred to as writing about one's own life or as an I narrative in the literary world, has been the subject of ongoing debate for many years. Recent literary theorists have argued autobiographical writing to perhaps not be completely possible due to reasons such as unconscious changes that may occur in memory (i.e., forgetting), as well as the occasional voluntary censorship or conscious changes that can also occur. The conscious and unconscious changes that are likely to occur in an author's work is currently leading toward the new genre of autofiction. This term, first used by French writer Serge Doubrovsky to describe his novel Fils [Son], can simply be summarized as the author's fictionalized narration of his own words, autofiction may not yet have any short or clear definition but is in reality an autobiography written according romantic codes. The aim of this study is to show how the codes of the autofictional narrative function in the novel famous Algerian novelist and history professor Assia Djebar titled L'Amour, La Fantasia in French and Fantasia: Cavalcade in the English translation, in which the historical and individual narratives intertwine within the framework concepts of autobiography, autobiographical novel, and autofiction.