ABSTRACT
The core culture of the Maghreb remained predominantly Arab-Berber, even as new forms of urbanism were introduced to the region. The ways that the sediments of these successive colonizations have inflected the culture and spaces of the Maghreb have not been lost on the region's literary chroniclers. Just about every writer who has represented the region at length has had to come to terms with the social products of this history. Their responses have ranged from critical wonderment at the intersecting cultural trends that have continually transformed the Maghreb over time, to enthusiastic celebration of the rich hybrid culture these have occasioned, to rejection of these colonial importations in favor of an imagined purer and authentic regional culture. Three of the names most commonly associated with the literature of the region, Algerian authors Kateb Yacine and Assia Djebar and longtime American expatriate resident of Morocco Paul Bowles, offer three nuanced, contrasting visions of the history of colonization in the Maghreb.
