SOURCE: Sethi, Robbie Clipper. Review of Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, by Assia Djebar. Studies in Short Fiction 30, no. 4 (fall 1993): 611-12.

In the following review, Sethi offers a favorable assessment of Djebar's feminist themes and narrative techniques in Women of Algiers in Their Apartment.

Women of Algiers in Their Apartment is Assia Djebar's only collection of short stories. Born Fatima Imalayen in 1936 in Algeria, she published her first novel, La soif (The Mischief [1957]) under the nom de plume to prevent her family from finding out that she was writing “erotic self-indulgence” while she was supposed to be studying for exams. Six more novels have followed, plus a play, a collection of poetry and two films (with a third to be made after the publication of this translation). In an “Overture” to the collection, Djebar explains her choice of French. Djebar considers Standard Arabic—established as the official...