Raccontare e raccontarsi al di là dei "limiti": "Ṣamt al-nawāqīs" di Fatḥiyya Dabiš

Abstract

Fatḥiyya Dabiš is a Tunisian novelist, poet, short story writer, translator and literary critic who was born in Mareth in 1969. She is best known for her debut novel, entitled “Mīlānīn” (Melanin) and published in 2019, which won the 6th edition (2020) of the prestigious “Katara Prize for Arabic Novel” (Ğā’izat Katārā li’l-riwāya al-‘arabiyya) in the category “Published Novels” (Fi’at al-riwāyāt al-manšūra). The present article focuses on her collection “Ṣamt al-nawāqīs” (The Silence of the Bells), which is a hybrid narrative work (mağmū‘a qiṣaṣiyya sardiyya hağīna) published in 2018. As the writer clarifies in the Introduction, it is not simply a short story collection but rather a selection of texts, halfway between narrative and thoughts (nuṣūṣ bayna al-qaṣṣ wa’l-ḫāṭir), written with the aim of crossing and breaking the boundaries/limits of literary genres. Starting from such a perspective, the author – through an in-depth critical analysis of some texts – examines the concept of “boundaries”, mostly perceived as “limits”, which concern both the content of texts (most of the stories deal with political imprisonments, physical and social violence, discrimination) and their external form (the author affirms that the adherence to a specific literary genre hinders the aesthetics of the text).