ABSTRACT
In his article ‘Travelling Concepts: Postcolonial Approaches to Exoticism’,
Charles Forsdick argues that:
the rehabilitation of exotisme in a variety of contexts and disciplines is, in
various ways, witness to the long standing French resistance to any
thorough and active engagement with postcolonial thought. French ver-
sions of exoticism do not necessarily indicate an insensitivity to the con-
dition of postcoloniality itself, but suggest instead that there is a need to
open up understandings of terms used in the postcolonial context and
take account of (un)translatability as these terms travel between con-
A footnote to this statement reminds us that the key theoretical players in post-
colonial studies, Said, Spivak and Bhabha remain relatively unavailable in
translation in France.2 This set me thinking about ways in which we might
productively approach the treatment of certain ‘orientalist’ features found in the
work of Francophone Arab women writers beyond a tried and tested post-
colonial framework. It is possible that the practice of exotisme or exoticism,
finds its way into the representation of current forms of identity and becomes, in
the hands of contemporary writers, a form of exploration, not into their past
in search of a heritage, as I explain below, but into art and aesthetics. Here, I
want to look at specific moments in the novels Women of Algiers in their
Apartment by Assia Djebar and the first novel in the Sherazade trilogy, Sherazade,
by Leila Sebbar3 in order to acertain the level of interpretation and association
with the prominency and legitimacy of exotisme as an interpretive frame-
work. I will argue for the possibility that women writers use the legacy of exo-
tisme in order to interrogate the discourse from within, whilst at the same time
immersing themselves in it. The novels will be also be examined in light of
what they have to offer an expanding Arab women’s literature in terms of
historical revisionism and direct political intervention, and, most significantly,
what they tell us about the internalisation of a colonialist legacy that some-
times appears etched in the unconscious of the text.
