Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

it rather than through the bias of French ideology. She also wrote for people of
other cultures to present a Moroccan woman's point of view. She wrote in French
because she felt she could use French more aggressively and express herself more
freely in this language, for an audience who read French and may not have
learned Arabic. Writing in French, the author addresses social issues that would
conceivably be difficult to express in written Arabic, a language closely
associated with national, patriarchal, and Islamic tradition. In literary Arabic, the
language of the Koran, such strongly subversive expressions and behavior would
automatically connote villainy and therefore tend to preclude readers' empathy.
The authorial narrator criticizes the family's subjugation of the individual, an
argument that would have been difficult to sustain in the language traditionally
used to subordinate the individual to the group in this society.
French language and culture have contributed to the hybridity of this
narrative's cultural context. Using the colonial language, the author projects
positive images of Moroccan cultural elements, traditions and characteristics such
as the cohesive strength and courage of the people of Fez under duress, subverting
the negative gaze of the colonizer and reminding her compatriots of cultural
elements that constitute their historic pride. Nouzha Fassi Fihri adopted the
novelistic genre to use as a heuristic tool to advocate for national pride. In her
opinion, narrative fiction is a more pleasant way of learning history and of
“raising questions, of discussing things that bother us," and of bringing about
change. For her, writing and reading offer the best means of gaining
emancipation.
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