When the Tale is Invited in the Novel of Mohammed Dib

This article examines the insertion of tales in the Dibian novel. Often, the Dibian novel remains the site of a quest where the character is confronted by questions about existence and the world. To insert in them an archetypal narrative of storytelling, where the laws are rather stable and predictable, leads us to question the nature of this generic coexistence. In this case Dib takes the path of narrative ambiguity by multiplying the functions of the narrator-character, again capable of sustaining the written narration as well as the oral one. More than the double cultural affiliation displayed, it is the happy meeting of the storyteller with his audience what is updated each time. Furthermore, the audience is about to hear their own story because the enunciation of story-telling is embedded in reflexive writing. The novel and the tale seem to be entwined in a kind of narrative continuity which highlights an act of ritualized enunciation and repels the specter of anxiety, even of death