Translating Prophètes sans Dieu/Godless Prophets by Slimane Benaïssa

What is it about?

Slimane Benaïssa is an Algerian Amazigh playwright who, since moving to France during the 1990s civil war in Algeria, writes predominately in French. His plays explore issues such as (un)veiling, interfaith relationships, secularism, and doubt, as well as traumatic legacies of imperialism from the perspective of Imazighen, the indigenous ‘free people’ of North Africa. Prophètes sans dieu (1998) stages an imagined dialogue between Moïse, Jésus, and the supposed ‘auteur’ of the play, who refuses to perform the role of Mahomet. At several moments, the play echoes Samuel Beckett’s En attendant Godot, read here as a kind of waiting for God (‘dieu’), as Moïse and Jésus simultaneously await and doubt the arrival of the third ‘prophète’. While Moïse confidently uses the imperative, ‘Attends de le voir’, Jésus tentatively uses the interrogative, ‘Tu es sûr qu’il va venir?’ Eventually, Moïse and Jesus have enough of playing along in the seemingly futile waiting game and revert to their actor selves within the ‘world of the play’, which becomes a site for questioning the limits of both representation and secularism, allowing for what I am calling ‘inter-doubt dialogue’. What follows are select extracts from the play translated into English.

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