ÉCRITURE ET IMAGINAIRE : POÉTIQUE DE L’IDENTITÉ DANS L’ŒUVRE DE NINA BOURAOUI

Abstract

This work examines the connection between identity and writing in Nina Bouraoui’s entire body of work, which spans a period of twenty-seven years (1991-2018) and is composed of sixteen novels, both fictional and autobiographical. I specifically look at the ways in which the author’s mixed heritage – Algerian father and French mother – informs her work and fuels her quest for identity in a world that constantly challenges her sense of self, shaping the way in which she recreates a place to negotiate the internal tensions through her writings. Drawing on theoretical discourses on cultural hybridity, I proceed to an analysis of the author’s writing processes, including her own reflections on cultural in-betweenness; her reliance on metaphors connected to the body as a “palimpseste” and nature as a refuge; the role of historical memory in the construction of the self; and her need to transcend binary paradigms to create her own history as a woman and her own story as a writer.