So Vast the Prison

By Assia Djebar

Book Overview

So Vast the Prison is the double-threaded story of a modern, educated Algerian woman existing in a man's society, and, not surprisingly, living a life of contradictions. Djebar, too, tackles cross-cultural issues just by writing in French of an Arab society (the actual act of writing contrasting with the strong oral traditions of the indigenous culture), as a woman who has seen revolution in a now post-colonial country, and as an Algerian living in exile. In this new novel, Djebar brilliantly plays these contradictions against the bloody history of Carthage, a great civilization the Berbers were once compared to, and makes it both a tribute to the loss of Berber culture and a meeting-point of culture and language. As the story of one woman's experience in Algeria, it is a private tale, but one embedded in a vast history. A radically singular voice in the world of literature, Assia Djebar's work ultimately reaches beyond the particulars of Algeria to embrace, in stark yet sensuous language, the universal themes of violence, intimacy, ostracism, victimization, and exile.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583220674
• ISBN13: 9781583220672
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

So Vast the Prison

A somewhat difficult book to read, unless one is familiar with the French post-modernist style (Derrida, Cixous) however well worth the effort. This is an ambitious book that explores the power-relationships between men and women, husbands and wives, colonists and colonized, French and Arabs, Arabs and Berbers as well as the power implicit within spoken and written language, using a poetic, somewhat cinematic style (Djebar is also a film-maker)that meanders between what is apparently a semi-autobiographical narrative and (somewhat)straightforward historical writing, focusing on both modern and ancient Algeria.This is not a book that one can skim through and still understand: however the end result is insightful and haunting and leaves one wishing for more.