Rachid Boujedra, Auto-Fiction, and the Interplay of the Aesthetic and Personal

Abstract

Analyzing the female character in Rachid Boujedra’s select narratives and with insights from both the sociology of gender theories and the narrative texts, this paper reflects on how literary portrayals of female characters might be subject to personal standards of evaluation while being responsive to social norms and expectations questioning whether writers can keep loyal to their artistic objectivity while writing women. With a particular emphasis on the Boujedra’s obsession with the Motherly figure in his narratives, this paper considers in what ways personal experiences intervene to shape the writer’s image of women in his society. Taking the Algerian society as a frame of reflection, the present paper articulates the interplay of the aesthetic and personal dimensions of Boujedra’s auto- fictional narratives pointing out that literary representations of female characters in male narratives do often oscillate between social expectations of women roles and the writer’s personal experiences.