SOURCE: Prendergast, Christopher. “Across the Borders.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4889 (13 December 1996): 12.

In the following review, Prendergast commends Djebar's cross-cultural juxtaposition of historical, cultural, and religious dualities in Vaste est la prison.

In the early nineteenth century (that is, at exactly the time when literature was being theoretically and practically modelled as essentially national literature), Goethe spoke of the dream of “a common world literature transcending national limits”. Goethe's idea is just that—an idea, recorded sketchily in fragments of conversation, letters and diary. It was an important and a generous idea, reaching out across divided peoples and cultures (often divided by war and, more frequently, by sheer ignorance) towards commonalities and shared experiences.

“We hear and read everywhere”, wrote Goethe, of the progress of the human race, of the wider prospects in world relationships between men. How far this is the case is not within my province to...