Contested Borders by William J Spurlin
This book broadens understandings of dissident sexualities in Africa through examining new representations of same-sex desire emerging in recent francophone autofictional writing from the Maghreb. Long-established traditions pertaining to gender and sexuality are brought into contact with new forms of gender and sexual dissidence, resulting from the inflection of globally circulating discourses and embodiments of queerness in North Africa, and from the experience of emigration and settlement by the writers concerned in France. The book analyses specifically how Franco-Maghrebi writers Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa, Eyet-Chékib Djaziri, and Nina Bouraoui foreground translation and narrative reflexivity around incommensurable spaces of queerness in order to index their crossings and negotiations of multiple languages, histories and cultures. By writing in French, Spurlin demonstrates that the writers are not merely mimicking the language of their former coloniser but inflecting a European language with discursive turns of phrase indigenous to North Africa, thus creating new possibilities of meaning and expression to name their lived experiences of gender and sexual alterity—a form of (queer) translational praxis that destabilises received gender/sexual categories both within the Maghreb and in Europe.
The book effectively illustrates the prowess of these writers who do not fit into national identities or Western sexual identities as they use their autofiction for self-discoveryIn this regard, the book offers a welcome look at queer migrant perspectives from France, which feels incredibly important given the political realities and colonialist history of France. * African Studies Review *
William Spurlin's Contested Borders: Queer Politics and Cultural Translation in Contemporary Francophone Writing from the Maghreb is a rigorously researched and critically incisive account of Franco-Maghrebi writing. Spurlin's intersectional analysis is equally attentive to geography, race, gender, sexuality, and language. Simultaneously invoking, departing from, and moving beyond the critical and creative archive of works from the region, the author's attention to new spaces of dissident sexualities leads to future directions for research in the area. Contested Borders is a must read for scholars in Postcolonial, Middle Eastern and North African, and Sexuality Studies. -- Kanika Batra, Texas Tech University, author of Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities: Publics, Counterpublics, Human Rights
Contested Borders is timely and makes an immense contribution to our understanding of queer sexualities in the Maghreb and by extension in Africa. To date, this is the only monograph in English on the Maghreb that brings to our attention important questions of our time: life writing, sites of memory, translation, globalization, and queer theory. -- Naminata Diabate, Cornell University
William Spurlin's Contested Borders: Queer Politics and Cultural Translation in Contemporary Francophone Writing from the Maghreb is a rigorously researched and critically incisive account of Franco-Maghrebi writing. Spurlin's intersectional analysis is equally attentive to geography, race, gender, sexuality, and language. Simultaneously invoking, departing from, and moving beyond the critical and creative archive of works from the region, the author's attention to new spaces of dissident sexualities leads to future directions for research in the area. Contested Borders is a must read for scholars in Postcolonial, Middle Eastern and North African, and Sexuality Studies. -- Kanika Batra, Texas Tech University, author of Worlding Postcolonial Sexualities: Publics, Counterpublics, Human Rights
Written in Spurlin’s usual deft style, Contested Borders surveys an impressive range of feminist and queer Maghrebian texts, part of the region’s long tradition of writing about same-sex desire. The authors of these texts, living in between radically different languages, histories, and cultures, visit upon those uncomfortable with the globe’s increasing
fragmentation the truths, triumphs, and fragilities of those living beyond essentialized Western categories and indigenous cultural taboos.
Contested Borders is timely and makes an immense contribution to our understanding of queer sexualities in the Maghreb and by extension in Africa. To date, this is the only monograph in English on the Maghreb that brings to our attention important questions of our time: life writing, sites of memory, translation, globalization, and queer theory. -- Naminata Diabate, Cornell University
William J. Spurlin is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brunel University of London, UK.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781538168080 |
| ISBN 10 | 1538168081 |
| Title | Contested Borders |
| Author | William J Spurlin |
| Series | Critical Perspectives On Theory Culture And Politics |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing Plc |
| Year published | 2026-04-30 |
| Number of pages | 262 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |