Identity Construction in Chukri Khodja’s El Euldj, Captifdes Barbaresques (1929)

AbstractThis paper examines ChukriKhodja'sEl-Euldjcaptif des Barbaresques (1929) as an early challenge to the colonial paradigm of assimilation through its author’s re-appropriation and subversion of colonial discourse. The novel attests to an active literary dialogue that evolved in response to changes in the Third Republic’s colonial policies following the First World War. Taking that critical moment of French colonial history into account, ChukriKhodja’s narrative deconstructs the French discourse and reveals its disturbing, hidden implications. The present article exploreshow does the text respond to or comment on the characters, topics, and assumptions of a (colonialist) work by following Helen Tiffin’s theoretical guiding principles, which examine how can a postcolonial text reshape the reader’s previous interpretations of canonical texts. Our final goal is to show how each of the work and its author contributed to a growing sentiment of anti-colonialism that would eventually lead to Algerian independence