SOURCE: Murphy, Richard. Review of So Vast the Prison, by Assia Djebar. Review of Contemporary Fiction 21, no. 3 (fall 2001): 202.

In the following review, Murphy commends the intellectual and aesthetic depth of So Vast the Prison.

The fragmented narrative of So Vast the Prison offers spaces of light—views between the bars, the breaks between segments. Ostensibly, Isma, called “the name,” narrates the novel, which relates her autobiography, her family history—especially the women's side—and Algerian/Islamic history. The narration begins with the platonic love Isma has for a young journalist, “the Beloved.” This story serves as the seed for the first narrative—Isma's repudiation by/of her husband, who attempts to blind her by beating her badly with a broken whiskey bottle, and her life to follow—and also as the seed for the imagery, repetitive occurrences, parallels in character and action in the rest of the novel...