The ideology of writing in the Algerian novel: between history and imagination -A Reading of Amin Zaoui’s Novel Al-Khullan-

Abstract

This study seeks to uncover the underlying ideology in the narrative discourse that derives its storytelling material from history. We chose Amin Zaoui’s novel Al-Khullan as a model; a novel in which the author himself stated in a press interview that it is a writing against official history. It rewrites the history of the Algerian Liberation Revolution, in which all Algerians participated regardless of their “beliefs, affiliations, and origins.” It attempts, through narrative imagination, to write what official history remained silent about.

From this emerges the central problem of the research: how does narrative discourse reproduce a counter-history and articulate what was silenced? Out of this central problem branch subsidiary questions: What does “writing against official history” mean? To what extent can it escape the danger of ideology?

One of the most prominent findings reached is that there are many challenges in confronting writing against history without falling into the traps of ideology and the risks of turning narrative discourse itself into an ideologically charged discourse.