Guest of the ilb 2006
Hélé Béji was born in Tunis in
1948 and grew up in a liberal family, the daughter of a Christian
mother and Muslim father. The possibility of experiencing the Islamic
tradition without any compulsion to conform to it was formative for her
entire work. She studied Modern Languages and qualified as a university
lecturer in Paris in 1973. She later taught French Literature at the
University of Tunis and worked in international affairs at UNESCO. In
1998 she founded the Collège international de Tunis, a cultural centre
devoted to intellectual exchange between the southern Mediterranean
region and Europe, the USA and Latin America, focusing on literature,
art, philosophy, history and sciences in general. She currently works
as the centre's director. Béji came to the fore in the public sphere
through a number of essays and prose pieces, a novel and numerous
articles which are all concerned with Islamic cultural heritage and the
latter-day influence of the West. In her first essay, »Désenchantement
national« (1982; t: National disenchantment), she addresses the
unresolved hope of postcolonial independence and denounces the misuse
of Western concepts such as nationalism and individualism within the
Arab world. In 1997 she took up this issue again in the essay
»L'imposture culturelle« (1997; t: The cultural deception). In her
autobiographical novel, »L'œil du jour« (1985; t: The day's eye), she
evokes the idyllic family life of her childhood as a symbol of a past
harmony which – subject to Western influence – has lost its currency.
Through the character of the mother, for instance, femininity is
depicted as a model for the tension between tradition and modernity,
Orient and Occident, security and freedom. As in her last essay, »Une
force qui demeure« (2006; t: An abiding force), Béji attempts to
understand this tension as richness and a source of strength. Through
finely tuned poetic language often charged with personal memories, she
describes the precarious situation of modern woman, who at the price of
her cultural roots and femininity has gained the qualities of equality
and autonomy. This dilemma is solved by considering humanity as the
common ground of both principles. »Woman's virtue does not reside with
her female identity, but rather with her human identity. As I see it,
transcending the women's issues raises questions facing humanity. For
questions of women's rights are not limited to a feminist discourse but
include, rather, quite definitely, the destiny of our era: the
confrontation between tradition and modernity.« Béji has received
numerous prizes for her work, among them the Prix de l'Afrique
méditerranéenne, the Prix de la création littéraire and the Grand Prix
de l'Association d'amitié France-Tunisie. The author lives and works in
Tunis.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Désenchantement national
Maspéro
Paris, 1982
L’œil du jour
Nadeau
Paris, 1985
Itinéraire de Paris à Tunis
Noël Blandin
Paris, 1992
L'Art contre la culture
Intersignes
Paris, 1994
L’Imposture culturelle
Stock
Paris, 1997
Une force qui demeure
Arléa
Paris, 2005
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