Rvolution nationale au royaume des mres dans Qui se souvient de la mer de Mohammed Dib

While Mohammed Dib's Algerian trilogy was still deeply rooted in realism, his 1962 novel entitled Qui se souvient de la mer granted a more significant role to dreams and mythology. Far from escaping history and drifting away from reality, the introduction of this new form of dreamlike writing permitted on the contrary the figuration of sociocultural problems raised by the FrenchAlgerian war. Starting with the homophony linking the mother (la mre) to the sea (la mer), Mohammed Dib thus introduced a material imaginary that allegorically connected the discourses on the nation and the Algerian family. It is especially when Dib establishes a dialectical tension between the primary elements of water and stone that his critique of French colonialism more clearly unveils some of the archaisms that paralyse both the Algerian society and its traditional family structure. This essay will analyse the emancipation of the woman inside the Algerian couple in the light of the revolutionary fight for national liberation as it appears in Dib's novel.