Breaking the silence or using it to speak? An exploration of silence as a literary device in four Harki narratives

Abstract

In their extremely diverse collecto-biographies, Rahmani, Besnaci-Lancou, and Kerchouche systematically attempt to break both the institutional and paternal silence that has scarred the Harki community in French and Algerian society for nearly half a century. These renowned female writers struggle to give voice to a misunderstood and marginalised group of people that still continue to suffer the devastating effects of ethnocentrism, ignorance and acute poverty on both sides of the Mediterranean. Conversely, in the absence of a space for public discourse that would directly address an open wound that is still visible in contemporary society, the relatively unknown short story L’Enfant de sous le pont by the 2008 Nobel Laureate in Literature, J. M. G. Le Clézio, uses silence as a communicative filter to expose the diasporic trauma of first-generation Harkis.