Le Corps dans le roman des écrivaines syriennes contemporaines. Dire, écrire, inscrire la différence

Contemporary Syrian women novelists show a growing interest in the body, focusing not only on the representation of femininity, but also on that of masculinity. The novels Kursī (2009) by Dīma Wannūs; Ḥurrās al-hawā’ (2009) by Rosa Yāsīn Ḥasan; Banāt al-barārī (2011) by Mahā Ḥasan; Rāʼiḥat al-qirfa (2008) by Samar Yazbik; Imraʼa min hāḏā al-ʻaṣr (2004) by Hayfāʼ Bīṭār and Burhān al-ʻasal (2007) by Salwā al-Naʻīmī are the focus of this monograph. In order to explore different aspects of contemporary Syrian society such as gender division, the gap between social classes, political repression, the status of minorities and the effects of dictatorship, the novelists explore multiple representations of the body. They question the status of the individual and the processes of subjectification in contemporary Arab society. ʻDifferenceʼ is explored on multiple levels: women's difference represented by women’s bodies, and the difference in the representation of the male body from women's point of view. Syrian novelists question some aspects of both the constructivist and the essentialist approaches to the body. Marked by their unique difference, the characters’ bodies become the physical and symbolic location of the struggle between individual and collective claims. By focusing on the body, contemporary Syrian women novelists do not only engage in the struggle for women's emancipation, but they engage in the broader struggle for the status of the individual in contemporary Syrian society.