Transcultural Migration in the Novels of Hédi Bouraoui

Elizabeth Sabiston, Ph.D. Cornell University (1969), is Professor Emerita of English and Director, Canada-Mediterranean Centre, York University, Toronto, Canada. She has published a monograph, The Muse Strikes Back, and articles on Hédi Bouraoui’s work, as well as monographs on 19th-century fiction, The Prison of Womanhood, and Women in Literature, Private Sphere to World Stage from Austen to Eliot.

"Transculturel Migration in the Novels of Hédi Bouraoui est une œuvre dense de 214 pages, constituée de 12 chapitres selon un ordre chronologique. Les quatre premierssont exclusivement consacrés à la trilogie: Cap Nord, Les Aléas d’une Odyssée, et Méditerranée à voile toute. Elizabeth Sabiston y analyse l’essence de la migration telle que l’imagine Hédi Bouraoui à partir de l’Odyssée d’Homère, et qu’il appelle lui-même ‘Emigressence’. Il est relativement aisé de relever les multiples prises de position d’un auteur, dès lors que l’exil, ce va-et-vient sans fin entre identité et altérité, devient matière à littérature, qu’il se nourrit de souvenirs longtemps enfouis, et qu’il se confond tout naturellement avec la vie." - Rafik Darragi, Leaders.com« Promenade avec Elizabeth Sabiston dans les romans d’Hédi Bouraoui……………………………………………La valse endiablée des stylespour la ronde des culturesTant d’autres ancragesl’Italie à bras ouvertset le CanadaLe narratoème explosele conteur est magicienQuand parle la tourles jumelles se font pierresque la vie éteintAncien monde ou Amériquesnous sommes tous voyageurs »- Georges Chapouthier, C.R.N.S., poète. Paris, France

• 1 Introduction2 Hédi Bouraoui’s Cap Nord: Mythopoeia and the Quest for Language1 North and South: the New Hannibal2 A Ulyssean Quest3 Islands and the Quest for Language4 Female Mentors: Saadia and Safia5 Albert Lacouture and Tante Souad: Written and Folkloric Traditions6 Manhattan Island: English and the New World7 Voices from Beyond the Grave: Father and Mother8 Sardinia: the Journey Begins9 Descent into the Underground10 Women and Islands11 A Storytelling Festival12 Sicily: the Crossroads13 Mama Lucia and the Word of the Father14 A Return and a New Departure: towards the Mother3 Penelope Liberated: the Female Quest in Les Aléas d’une Odyssée1 Part 1 Corsica: the Mother Discovered2 Part 2 Le Dit de Pénélope: Laura at the Helm4 Adventures of a Young Man: the Initiation of Télémaque in Méditerranée à voile toute1 Première Partie Hanniballade à Majorque2 Deuxième Partie Le Marcheur de Malte Télémaque Takes the Reins5 Sept portes pour une brûlance: Mad Love and Poetic Creation1 The Mystic Number Seven2 The Frame Tale3 The Female Narrator: Shifting Ientities4 The Language of the Heart5 The Battle of the Sexes6 Corsica and the Homeric Frame7 The Death of Love, the Birth of Art8 The Reader’s Seduction6 Berber Girl in Paris: Illusions Lost and Faisances Found1 The Title: Colonizer and Colonized2 Structure: Triangularity and Circularity3 Paean to the Southwest4 Adventures of a Book5 Tassadit: Berber Girl as Storyteller6 Culture Shocks: French Realism, Berber Arabesques7 “Famille, je te hais !”8 The Americanization of Ariane: a Parallel Failure9 The Cultural Revolution of May ’68 and Its Aftermath7 La Réfugiée (Lotus au Pays du Lys): a Transgeneric Poetic Voyage1 The Epic and the Language of Flowers2 Private and Public Spheres: DorBoa’s Family and Laos3 DorBoa in France: Paradise or Purgatory?4 Refugee versus Immigrant: Issues of Free Choice5 DorBoa Cultivates Her Garden … and Language6 DorBoa and Politics7 DorBoa and the Worship of Idols8 Culture Shocks and French Xenophobia9 “Lotus in Africa”: Buddhist Meets Muslim10 DorBoa’s Dark Side: the Serpent in the Garden11 Ritual and the Daily Routine12 Innocence in a Fallen World13 A “Traversée” of Cultures8 Puglia with Open Arms: Otherness Embraced9 Wandering Words: Tracing the Ulyssean Cycle in Le Conteur1 Circles and Cycles: Canada and the Mediterranean2 Living Words versus Technology3 Politics and Language4 Fiction and Language5 Written and Oral Traditions: a Dialectic6 The “Real” versus the Fictive7 Frederick II and Samy: a Role Model8 Let the Conteurs Speak: Male and Female9 Italy Comes to Canada10 Les Jumelles de l’oncle Sam: Immigration and American Women1 Female Towers and Patriarchal Dominance2 Peggy Windley: in Memoriam3 Freedom and the Defrocked Nun4 Saïd: from Naïf to Sage11 Beyond the New Novel: Faisance, Narratoème, “Slice of Life”1 Mutante, la Poésie: a Retrospective2 Nomadivivance I: towards the Future3 Orbit’Luire Maremma: “Seize the Day”12 ConclusionWorks Cited/ConsultedPrimary TextsSecondary TextsIndex