“Mirages de l'outre-mer”: Postcolonial Travel in Rachid Boudjedra's Topographie idéale pour une agression caractérisée

This essay examines Rachid Boudjedra's novel Topographie idéale pour une agression caractérisée (1975) in relation to two intertwined shifts in global patterns of mobility that shape the historical moment of the novel's narrative setting of 1973: the evolving status of postcolonial subjects traveling to France and the explosion of mass tourism. Focusing on the experiences of the unnamed protagonist, an Algerian emigrant murdered upon arrival in Paris, it argues that the hostility encountered by immigrant workers in the 1970s is a response to their seeming threat to the cultural identity of both French tourists and French “natives.” Expressions of xenophobia reveal metropolitan anxiety over postcolonial challenges to the French xenophilic imaginary as well as the perceived assault on French civilization. This exploration of Boudjedra's engagement with various forms of mobility (migration, tourism) participates in current debates over the place of postcolonial narratives within the genre of travel literature.