Taking the example of the Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra, the present study examines the intercultural discourse created by North African fiction addressing a Western reader.
Considering a novel originally published in France in 2006, namely Les sirènes de Bagdad, the study suggests that already the choice of language and genre is an expression of the author’s approaching of the Western reader. Also, the Western reader is written into the story by didactic features and referential play. Examining Yasmina Khadra’s image and the rhetoric of his narrative, the study finds that the author produces intermediate acts of speech aiming to make certain aspects of Arabic culture intelligible to the Western reader. Judging from the reception in Europe and in the USA, the prose in question is generally perceived as a relevant and enlightening commentary to the situation in the Middle-East. However, some German critics seem reluctant towards the authority of the writer and to parts of the referential grounding. The study suggests that the differences of opinion in this respect depend on varying degrees of readiness to accept the designated role of the reader inherent to the enunciative situation.