Madīḥ al-karāhiya de Ḫālid Ḫalīfa : corps féminin, violence et religieux

In Madīḥ al-karāhiya (The Praise of Hatred, 2006), Syrian novelist Khālid Khalīfa devotes his art to the literary representation of martyrdom. In this novel, the relationship between body, violence and identity is explored in order to represent and challenge any form of repression—be it political or religious—that ravaged Syria during the 1980s. The novel’s female protagonist is a teenager from a Muslim family of Aleppo. Upset by the changes that are happening to her body—she is becoming a woman—her wish to escape sexual desire and to conceal the signs of her femininity brings her closer to a group of Muslim extremists who practice armed struggle. By focusing on this female character, Khālid Khalīfa questions the role of violence and religion in the process of the individual’s subjectivation. The adolescent female body becomes the symbol of the individual’s rejection of norms, a nonconformism that cannot be accepted by society. For the protagonist, martyrdom is the means to define her individual identity and to appropriate her body by imposing it on the public space and on her community.