Who Is Speaking

Our dream paths cross and come to nothing buried in heretic fog

Impenetrable silence burns in your eyes

Even speaking you stay silent

– Anise Koltz, Un monde de pierres

- Samira Negrouche

Tell me – Who are you? When you speak in someone else’s language? Who are you when you seem to be waiting endlessly for the other, an other who resembles you, to authorize your existence? Only silence can answer.

Water seems neutral, I’m not talking about mineralized water, or water that’s been changed or blended; I’m talking about that infinity of molecules made of three atoms. H2O’s interminable architecture seems neutral and yet, in the subtle sequence of atom beside atom, a specific language is defined, carrying the memory of what had been. The most neutral-seeming chemical entity carries within its structure the most complex memory, complex because invisible, unsuspected.

Who are you? A complex structure of silences.

Something oscillates between a fierce desire for neutrality – that is to suppress everything that identifies instantly and impedes attention – and the urgent desire for provocation – who is one really provoking? – that is, to give a precise contour to my image, aid communication with landmarks – rebellious ones included – that seem comprehensible.

You speak French very well . . . are you an independent country after all?! . . . the language of the colonizer . . . an authentic poet of your region would write in Arabic . . . you’ve got to speak to the people . . . you are dubious and don’t represent the citizen lambda . . . all the Algerian writers live in Paris . . . you are trilingual illiterates . . . an Algerian novel is a novel whose French has a tan . . .