Chiasmus and Après-Coup: Andalusia as Trauma in Rachid Boudjedra's La Prise De Gibraltar

Abstract

Critical readings of Rachid Boudjedra's 1986 novel La Prise de Gibraltar have invariably emphasised the text's fictionalisation of history and its debunking of foundational myths. Yet the novel's reliance on the mythopoetic trope of al-Andalus has surprisingly received little attention. This article restores the mythical recording and affective resignification of Tariq Ibn Ziyad's 711 Andalusian conquest to the core of the novel's take on historicity. Abdelkebir Khatibi's reflections on the trope of al-Andalus have taught us that all engagements with the Andalusian past bear the indelible mark of trauma. Building on Khatibi's concept of al-Andalus as 'traumatic chiasmus', I trace the deep-time resonance of Tariq Ibn Ziyad's conquest of Spain through its juxtaposition with the novel's second traumatic episode - the women's insurrection against the French in Constantine in 1955, an event that indirectly causes the narrator Tarik's post-traumatic thyroid-related obesity. Beyond this...