"The Magician’s Wife" in view of the colonisation of Algeria. A historical novel according to Brian Moore

Authors

  • Dorota Filipczak Uniwersytet Łódzki, Instytut Anglistyki, Zakład Literatury i Kultury Brytyjskiej

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.05.08

Keywords:

historical novel, The Magician’s Wife

Abstract

The article analyses the last work by Brian Moore, entitled The Magician’s Wife (English edition: 1997, Polish edition: 2000) as a historical novel. The Belfast-born writer who became a Canadian citizen and died in the US, had an ‘Algerian episode’ in his life. In his last years, most plausibly inspired by the historical source entitled Confidences d’un prestidigitateur and authored by Robert Houdin, Moore created an unofficial version of events which were supposed to have contributed to the final conquest of Algeria by the French. The visit that the recognised French illusionist paid to Algeria was connected with a political mission he’d been assigned. His magic tricks were to convince the local leaders that the French possessed the power that would make them victorious. The essence of Moore’s design was to present these actions from the magician’s wife’s point of view, who – as opposed to her prototype – is something more than just a passive witness.

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Author Biography

Dorota Filipczak, Uniwersytet Łódzki, Instytut Anglistyki, Zakład Literatury i Kultury Brytyjskiej

Dr hab. prof. Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego. Zajmuje się literaturami anglojęzycznymi, zwłaszcza kanadyjską; redaktor naczelna międzynarodowego czasopisma naukowego „Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture”. Jej artykuły ukazywały się w „The Malcolm Lowry Review”, „Literature and Theology”, „TransCanadiana”, „Studia Anglica Posnaniensia” oraz w monografiach wieloautorskich, wydawanych m.in. przez Routledge i Springer. Najważniejsze publikacje to The Valley of the Shadow of Death: Biblical Intertext in Malcolm Lowry’s Fiction (1998/1999) oraz rozprawa habilitacyjna Unheroic Heroines: The Portrayal of Women in the Writings of Margaret Laurence (2007). Poetka i tłumaczka, opublikowała sześć tomików wierszy, a także tłumaczenia w „Literaturze na Świecie”.

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Published

2016-12-30

How to Cite

Filipczak, D. (2016). "The Magician’s Wife" in view of the colonisation of Algeria. A historical novel according to Brian Moore. Czytanie Literatury. Łódzkie Studia Literaturoznawcze, (5), 111–120. https://doi.org/10.18778/2299-7458.05.08