Author

Dr. Maya Hadeh

Published in

Proceedings of  International Colloquium: “Beirut Signs, Symbols, Memory (Memories) of a Metamorphosis”, The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) in collaboration with GERPHAU Laboratory ( Paris La Villette), 2017, pp.331-341

Abstract

The current study takes for its subject the representation of the city Beirut in the work of Richard Millet, through two different and complementary axes: the theme of memory and the quest of identity.

Born in Viam (France) in 1935, this French author spent part of his childhood in Beirut and thus, he made the capital of Cedars the space frame of his fiction. But the presence of the city in Millet’s novels runs along the double register of the imaginary and real : if the first one describe Beirut as a city of dreams which reflect the joyful childhood era, the other one makes this metropolis with all its metamorphosis, complexity and contradictions a space of disorientation and identity effacement.

Keywords:          Richard Millet, Beirut, exile, metamorphosis, quest of identity

Link to read full paper

http://www.usek.edu.lb/news/beirut-signs-symbols-memory