Lier les présents aux absents : 
regards sur la condition d’exilé dans les littératures libano-québécoise et arabe contemporaine
Exile is a condition of displacement and a phenomenon that affects great masses of people today. Although this experience exists since the proverbial beginning of time, its parameters are changing in the present context of globalization, which transforms the role of nations and where societies are characterized by greater mobility and cultural diversity. The profound psychological and cultural transformations of identity – inward and outward – to which people are confronted through displacement can be understood as a condition per se, an exilic condition. This condition with moving marks, and which develops in a discontinuous temporality and as a necessarily painful experience, has been the source of prolific literature and of literary studies in the 20th century and before. How, differently then, does the 21st century gaze at this condition ? In this thesis, four works are analyzed in which the authors present different visions of the exilic condition. Two main lines of thinking have been explored around this condition: Edward Said embraced a critical and political posture while Julia Kristeva conceived of exile in its psychological dimensions. Within these analytic perspectives, Mourid Barghouti’s autobiography has affinities with Said’s approach as it inaugurates an autonomous condition. Through Rawi Hage’s novel, a more psychological experience of exile is observed, one that is more violent and traumatic. It sheds light on the undeniable impact of the environment on the experience of exile in the host country. If the relation to the host country stays dysfunctional, a pathological attitude to the exilic experience may develop. Abla Farhoud’s novel explores the possible overcoming of the pathologies of exile through distance, age, time, and words, the distance needed for Dounia. Finally, the psychological limitations of exile can be overcome by translating the “unspeakable” in violence, by a return to the pre-exilic traumas, and by a collective sharing of this restorative work. Mouawad’s play also exposes the psychological dimension of exile, but it also maintains its critical and political ones. We observe through these analyses that the exilic condition demands a redressing of the traumas that preceded exile, understood as another trauma, so that the exiled can exist in an autonomous, creative and committed way in his or her society of adoption. For the last three authors, this society is Québec, which shows openness to, and comprehension of, the major issues of the exilic condition in the 21st century.
Migration Violence Exile literature Loss Displacement Heritage Trauma