SOURCE: Ascarza-Wégimont, Marie. “Djebar's Ombre sultane.” Explicator 55, no. 1 (fall 1996): 55-7.

In the following essay, Ascarza-Wégimont discusses a poetical refrain in Ombre sultane that suggests the realization of female self-expression and liberation.

[u]nder the bed where the couple is making love, at the beginning of each night, the child hears the voice. Tucked in a cradle hanging under the high bed, the little girl hears her mother's song while each night stretches its wings out. …

At the beginning of each night the voice soars; first it murmurs, whispers, hoots and shudders, then slowly weaves the swelling modulations of a song. Song of fulfilled love. …

The child hears the voice; later, so much later, the girl will become a woman. Not the first night, not the following nights, but after crossing the desert of habit protected by wanderings and lightened by fervor. All of a sudden her...