Identités corporelles dans les romans de Leïla Slimani
Corporeal Identities in Leïla Slimani’s Novels

Summary/Abstract: In the first part of this article, by approaching two novels – Dans le jardin de l’ogre (2014) and Chanson douce (2016) –, we aim to analyze the way in which the literary author Leïla Slimani “dissects” the female body and mind in crisis, deeply affected by horrid addictions. We shall explore the multiple manners in which Leïla Slimani’s characters transgress societal and gender norms associated with the body, as well as the inevitable conflicts that arise. The second part of the study, which focuses on the first volume, La guerre, la guerre, la guerre [War, War,War], of Slimani’s 2020 novel Le pays des autres [In the Country of Others1], analyzes hybrid bodily representations within a colonial context, in a Morocco that feels the urgency of an imminent independence. In this historical context, the female body, tense or liberated, controlled or unbridled, resonates with the symbolically or literally hostile spaces described without any concern for sensitivity or aesthetics. In a perpetual metamorphosis, the female body as represented in Slimani’s work has a high potential for a hybrid identity since it is a bearer of balance and tolerance.

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