Ouatann and Cocotte: Arabic in French and French in Arabic in Two Tunisian Women’s Novels

Reading Azza Filali’s Ouatann (2012) in French and Hafidha Karabibene’s Al-nijma wal-cocotte (2015) in Arabic together allows for an understanding of the formation of a post-Revolutionary identity and a critique of a nation sickened by dictatorship since its independence. In the first part of the article, I develop the idea of mixage of Arabic, colloquial Tunisian and/or French which reflects Abdelkebir Khatibi’s notion of languages inhabiting one another. In the second part of the article, I extrapolate the notion of ‘tri-langue’ and the process of mixage as literary tools that enable the authors to convey the birth of the Tunisian Revolution. Reading a novel in French alongside one in Arabic together defies the colonial linguistic divide between French and Arabic. It furthermore allows colloquial Tunisian, the language of the heart for most, to transfer from the realms of the oral world into the realms of the written.