Zusammenfassung / Abstract
“Concepts of Space and the Reception of Antiquity in Abdelaziz Ferrah’s novel “Moi, Saint Augustin’” – This paper explores the ways in which Abdelaziz Ferrah includes concepts of space (and time) in his novel about the church father St. Augustine. In the novel, Augustine is a berber firmly rooted in his local identity. Metaphors taken from the landscape of Africa are frequently used to characterize him and other Africans. While this literary technique is not new (it is also used e. g. by Léopold Sédar Senghor and has parallels in ancient climate-theories) Ferrah extends it also to the monuments of pre-Roman Africa. Seeing these monuments allows the berbers of the novel to connect deeply with their past and even to fuse past and present. The paper focuses on the particularly striking scene in the city of Dougga, where Ferrah’s Augustine travels to visit the famous Numidian mausoleum. It compares this approach to that of the historical church father who valued liturgical remembrance over a physical monument. It then shows how Ferrah’s interpretation is relevant for the reappropriation of St. Augustine in the modern Maghreb.