Rachid Mimouni is an icon of the literary significant in the exchequer literary algerian postcolonial, because it is a novelist who has acquired an authority with a talent of “goual”, the modern griot. Observer, commentator and lucid of an Algeria in turmoil, that of the post-independence, the black decade, it deserves a visit also for its fight against fundamentalism. His work is important, composed of a dozen of texts that evoke the societal problems of Algeria’s post-colonial, and even those of many african countries. His commitment to citizenship in the “city” in the 1990s cost him his life. He has earned the stature of a storyteller in the privacy of algeria all the more that its ideological message was openly modernist.
Read also Benaouda Lebdai – Mohammed Dib, this African full
also Read Hajar Bali : “A book that pays tribute to the algerian people”
A novelist committed
For him, ” the writer should be a visionary, a watcher… the one who should be among the first to give the alarm.” So, he had the sense of commitment where literary texts structured with meaning, featuring a large humanity and an intimate knowledge of algerian society as he was told without complacency, as I had said : “Do not expect me to say that my country is the best in the world. My work as a novelist is the opposite of this attitude. I want to shock to get people to act. The novel is a discourse that aims to transmit a message. Leaves to be outrageous, I remain convinced that my work transcends the stories I have to tell. “Nevertheless, his novels are not pamphlets political, but much of the real-life stories with the story lines, colorful characters, fleshed out, all in nuances.
A style to share
Rachid Mimouni has never enrolled in a literature of self-centred, but in the texts of fiction with a realistic style, rooted in the terroir, with a poetic, dialogical, as in the Honor of the tribe, or The River diverted. His texts reflect painful experiences. They depict “sentences to live”, in styles that are inspired by the oral tradition of the people, with a poetic mixed with a theatricality that includes ” the systematic use of dialogue and direct speech… with a presence of characters straight out of the oral tradition “.
A total commitment in the face of the breakdown of a system
Rachid Mimouni was always inhabited by an emergency that takes its source in his revolt against corruption, burdensome bureaucracy, and intolerance. In this regard, the titles of his novels are programmatic, because they emphasize the state of mind of an approach that is indignant that indicates the key periods of algerian History : A peace to live, The River diverted, Tombéza, the Honour of the tribe, The Belt of the ogre, A sentence to live or The Curse. In The River is diverted, it puts in scene the story of a resistance fighter with amnesia who returns to his village years after the end of the war of independence of Algeria. The “mujahid” then discovers the changes in the behaviour of nationalists who gave in to the corruption and privileges of a shock to this character who fought for Algeria for all. This corrosive tale portrays the alarming phenomenon of corruption by denouncing shortages are organised which benefit the merchants and administrators of shady. He said : “Naive, we all were, we got off our mountains, the head full of dreams… We dreamed to put the freedom in all deeds, the democracy in the hearts of all, justice and fraternity between all men. And, one fine morning, we woke up with a taste of bitterness in the mouth, the disaster made. “This novel describes a reality that is bitter to installing Rachid Mimouni on the side of” les misérables “.
Cookie social
Rachid Mimouni becomes the witness of an Algeria struggling with his demons. In the Honor of the tribe, it reminds us of the history of Algeria in a style which blends realism, satire, irony, myths and legends. The return to the sources, the algerian is about and, at the same time, it argues for an Algeria that is modern, open to the world. This question is still underlying in his stories who denounce talent with social situations and political scabrous. In this novel, the narrator sets the scene for a prefect frustrated, because he occupies a position of “prefect”, while he dreams of a position more cost-effective in an embassy with a ” wage benefit, while currency hard, a large residence in the heart of the capital, a teeming household, a luxurious car with a driver who makes the leek from morning to evening, and from evening to morning, awaiting his good pleasure, the privilege to invite who he wants at the expense of the State, including his mistresses “.
also Read Chawki Amari : “I tried to write according to this tradition algerian”
a legacy of A hot news
The criticism is scathing, and the motivation of the novelist takes its source in his love of letters, and in his need to tell the evolution of a society free of colonialism. Rachid Mimouni was aware of his role in arousing consciousness, because, during the black decade in Algeria was crossing, it was inevitable in the public debate, which has made him a target of islamic fundamentalists who had well understood. They have to be silenced by the threat, forcing him to exile who killed him. Rachid Mimouni died in Paris on February 2, 1995. It remains a model of commitment, courage, and love, by its support of societal problems and by its courage. The presence implied by Rachid Mimouni is always circulating through the texts of the post-black decade, such as those of Adlène Meddi with 1994, a novel in line with the tradition mimounienne, in terms of the evocation of the curse that befell Algeria. Adlène Meddi has resumed the thread of the Story, where the left-Rachid Mimouni, continuing a duty of memory and alert to say the trauma and revive the memory of the victims of a fundamentalist religious without concession. The indelible trace of the will of Rachid Mimouni to denounce intolerance, to be the conscience of society, permeates his work that is open to modernity and democracy. He has published an essay, Of the barbarism in general and fundamentalism in particular, where he stated bluntly his credo : “I’m fighting intolerance “, a text to read and which shows how much was important the denunciation of fundamentalism by the algerian intellectuals as early as the 1990s. The fight against extremism religious started in Algeria during these tragic years. If literature is the art and commitment in the manner of Sartre, the approach of Rachid Mimouni is in line with the “j’accuse” of Emile Zola. Rachid Mimouni is a novelist of africa, recalling with force Sembene Ousmane, Ngugi Wa Thiong O, or Aminata Sow Fall.
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* Benaouda Lebdai is university professor of african literature colonial and postcolonial.
writing will advise you
Library of the Maghreb : (re)read “coffee” with Mohammed Dib international book fair of Algiers : the hirak is also part of the Chawki Amari : “I tried to write according to this tradition algerian” Ben Jelloun – France-Algeria : a novel to appease the memory hurt Hajar Bali : “A book that pays tribute to the algerian people,” Benaouda Lebdai – Mohammed Dib, this African full
