While growing up in Algeria, Djebar's character Isma discovers that her culture is also conceived as a prison and she cannot releases herself from the oppression and confinement that she feels even as a child. Thus, she starts to study the lives of her grandmother and mother who marry, fall in love and have bittersweet affairs and they change their destiny by breaking the space and challenge their society. After much suffering and struggles, she liberates herself and becomes a filmmaker, turning her camera on the faces of "Arable women” which refers to the Maghrebian women.
In So Vast the Prison, each chapter centers on different female figures who may speak in either the first or the third person. Djebar's female characters struggle with
In So Vast the Prison, each chapter centers on different female figures who may speak in either the first or the third person. Djebar's female characters struggle with