Langue (dé)colonisée, langue colonisatrice La surconscience linguistique et la condition juive chez Albert Cohen et Piotr Rawicz

Albert Memmi, one of the forerunners of the postcolonial thought, perceived the Jewish condition as an emblem, even an archetype, of any dominated, oppressed, dispossessed condition. The highly specific consciousness of the colonised condition which the Jewish writer manifests seems to be shaped by the centuries-long communal experience, which exceeds the historical and political frames of postcolonialism sensu stricto, as the Jewish identity is stigmatised from its beginnings (conceived of as a narrative conveyed by the biblical tradition) by the experience of oppression and the threat of extermination or assimilation. These transhistorical factors determine to a large extent linguistic strategies typical for Jewish literature written in European (non-Jewish) languages. It is from this perspective that the present article discusses the role of the linguistic superconsciousness of Albert Cohen and Piotr Rawicz, two francophone Jewish writers, whose works - precursory to the postmodern condition - reveal identitarian, ethical and esthetic challenges related to the use of the language of the other in the creative process. Key words: Jewish literature, linguistic superconsciousness, oppression, postmodern condition.