Monuments, Tombs, and Texts in Zahia Rahmani's Moze

Abstract:In this article, the author analyzes Zahia Ramani's Moze, published in 2003, both as a literary monument to the author's father (a harki who later committed suicide in France) and as a text which explores the politics of memorialization. Commemorative imagery recurs throughout Moze, with the most prominent example being the monument aux morts that Moze visits before his suicide on November 11. Such World War I memorials—and the date of November 11—also came to commemorate the dead of later wars; when Moze returns to the source of contemporary memorialization to salute the dead, he underscores his absence from the sacralized ranks of those generations of morts pour la France. The narrator also explores the echoes between ancient Berber and Roman burial sites, contemporary hidden tombs for harkis, and Moze's own final resting place in a French terrain vague. I concentrate on the esthetic and political implications of Moze's dialogue with other commemorative modes. Drawing on studies of physical countermonuments, I argue that Moze functions as a textual countermonument due to its fragmented style and its tendency to unsettle (rather than glorify) representations of the national past.