Espaces lisses ou espaces striés ? Le désert et la mer dans Les Hommes qui marchent et N’zid de Malika Mokeddem

Abstract

Two spaces hold a central place in Malika Mokeddem’s novels: the (Algerian) desert, where she grew up, and the (Mediterranean) sea. This article seeks to examine her representation of these two spaces, drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s “Treatise on Nomadology” (1980). While these two philosophers propose an idealized image of nomadism, which they associate with freedom, and of the desert, which they describe as a “smooth” space— a space that is free from codifications and hierarchies—Mokeddem’s vision is more nuanced. Although she paints a tender portrait of “les hommes qui marchent” (the men who walk, as she calls her nomadic ancestors), she is alert to the yokes that hinder these people’s freedom and turn the space they traverse into a “striated” space (as opposed to “smooth”): the colonial yoke, to start with, and the even more stifling one of ossified traditions, which are particularly harsh towards women. In contrast to this oppressive space, Mokeddem views the Mediterranean as a symbol of openness and tolerance, and as a “Third Space” (to take up Homi K. Bhabha’s term) that enables a happy blending of cultures.