Queer Nations: Marginal Sexualities in the Maghreb

Jarrod Hayes

University of Chicago Press, Apr 1, 2000 - Literary Criticism - 307 pages

The Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) has been inhabited for millennia by a heterogeneous populace. However, in the wake of World War II, when independence movements began to gain momentum in these French colonies, the dominant national discourses attempted to define national identities by exclusion. One rallying cry from the 1930s was "Islam is my religion, Arabic is my language, Algeria is my fatherland."

In this incisive postcolonial study, Jarrod Hayes uses literary analysis to examine how Francophone novelists from the Maghreb engaged in a diametric nation-building project. Their works imagined a diverse nation peopled by those who were excluded by the dominant political discourses, especially those who did not conform to traditional sexual norms. By incorporating representations of marginal sexualities, sexual dissidence, and gender insubordination, Maghrebian novelists imagined an anticolonial struggle that would result in sexual liberation and envisioned nations that could be defined and developed inclusively.

Contents

• Reading and Tourism Sexual Approaches to the Maghreb: 24
• Moha and Theory Machine: 51
• Homosexuality Unveiled: 74
• Skeletons in the Closet Tahar Djaouts Betrayal of National Secrets: 97
• In the Nations Closets Sexual Marginality and the Itinerary of National Identity: 121
• Sex on Fire Mohammed Dib and the Algerian Revolution: 137
• The Haunted House of the Nation Kateb Yacines Nedjma: 149
• Becoming a Woman Tahar Ben Jellouns Allegory of Gender: 166
• Personality the Political Politicizing the Personal Assia Djebars Feminist Rewriting of History: 183
• Women Come Out into the Nation Djebars Allegory of Marriage: 199
• Escaping the Identity Police Lelia Sebbar: 216
• The Joy of Castration Childhood Narratives and the Demise of Masculinity: 242
• Allegories of the Queer Nation: 263
• Works Cited: 288
• Index: 300

About the author

Jarrod Hayes is an assistant professor of international relations at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Queer Nations: Marginal Sexualities in the Maghreb
• Author: Jarrod Hayes
• Edition: 2
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0226321061, 9780226321066
• Length: 307 pages
• Subjects: Literary Criticism / African; Literary Criticism / European / French; Literary Criticism / Gay & Lesbian; Literary Criticism / General