Writing Violence in Bashir Mufti's Ashbah Al-Madinah Al-Maqtulah (The Ghosts of the Murdered City)

Abstract

This paper examines why and how Algerian Arabic novelist Bashir Mufti inscribes 'violence' in his novel Ashbah al-madinah al-maqtulah (The Ghosts of the Murdered City) (2012). The novel deals with one of the most traumatic episodes in Algerian contemporary history, namely the events of the 1990s. Commonly referred to as the Black Decade, the period was marked by the rise of religious fundamentalism, and by an increase of diverse forms of violence. The paper argues that Mufti's text counters official discourse in its attempt to speak the unspeakable, and offers multivocal narrative as a means to resist oblivion in the very particular political and historical context of the Post-Civil War era. The paper also contends that telling the story of this tragic and traumatic collective experience is an important and indispensable aspect if the trauma is to be worked through.