La vendredinnade (im)possible de Kamel Daoud

Abstract

This article proposes an interpretation of three texts by Kamel Daoud: Meursault, contre-enquête (2014) and two short stories published in 2008, “La Préface du nègre” and “L’Arabe et le vaste pays de Ô”. They all contain allusions to Defoe’s masterpiece Robinson Crusoe and to the tradition of robinsonnades. Even if the narrator of one of the short texts declares that a vendredinnade is not possible, “as were all the robinsonnades written during several centuries”, the gesture involved in the narration of these three texts perhaps gives elements for a possible vendredinnade.

Keywords

• robinsonnade
• rewriting
• francophone literature
• Algeria
• intertextuality
• Daoud (Kamel)