Yod (Jan 2015)
« Comme si j’étais en face de ruines »
Abstract
The spatial dimension plays a unique role in modern Hebrew literature mainly with regard to the relation between identity constructions and space. In Zeruya Shalev's novel Thera the quest for a place where it is possible to experiment the feeling of belonging takes place according to what Sidra Dekoven Ezrahi defines as the “ongoing dialectic between the temporal and the spatial, between the ‘imaginary’ and the ‘real’, the mimetic and the original, desire and fulfilment”. From this point of view, the article analyzes Shalev's novel with respect to the function of the biblical model of the Exodus as a way to define anew the notion of belonging to a place and to the questioning of this model through the evidential paradigm.
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