Kristeva's Stranger Within: The Question of the Foreigner in Daniel Prevost's Le Passe sous silence

Abstract

This article draws on Kristeva’s theories of the foreigner within the national boundaries and, together with her earlier work on the abject, considers the challenge posed by the individual who is rejected as foreign, to the boundaries which constitute collective and individual identity. With reference to Prévost’s Le Passé sous silence (1998), it argues that the solutions posited by Kristeva are of limited value within contemporary French society, and concludes by considering the potential of literature as an alternative means of reconciliation with otherness.