SOURCE: Hill, Ivan. “A Love-Hate Affair.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4541 (13-19 April 1990): 404.

In the following excerpt, Hill offers a positive assessment of Djebar's blend of history and memoir in Fantasia.

It is a platitude among Algerians of a certain age that the relationship between France and Algeria was a love story. Assia Djebar plays on this from a variety of angles in Fantasia. Fundamentally, there is the question of language. Endearments in her mother tongue of Arabic are full and erotic, but not to be used outside the family except in illicit missives. The curlicues of the script are sensual. French is the language for thought, but its blandishments are devoid of passion. The angular writing is cold. Yet she has chosen to weave together incidents from her childhood and the French invasions of her country in the less intimate language.

In Fantasia, she treats historical reports by...