META-NOVEL, AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND RESILIENCE IN LEÏLA SLIMANI'S LE PARFUM DES FLEURS LA NUIT

Abstract

There are times when novelists interweave meta-narrative, autobiography and fiction. Such is the case with Leïla Slimani's novel Le parfum des fleurs la nuit. This novel, published in 2021, has the unmistakable characteristics of autobiographical writing. In it, the novelist recounts episodes from her life, her family, her experiences, her native country, her travels and so on. The work could also be seen as a long reflection on what literature can - and should - be. According to the author, literature's principal mission is resilience. Through writing, writers can repair themselves, hopefully reinventing new, possible universes, and thus repairing the real world. This is what Leïla Slimani seems to want to affirm in her novel. In this paper, we aim to show how meta-narrative and autobiographical writing are placed at the service of Slimani's conception of literature and art as means of resilience and liberation. In the mind of this novelist, writing certainly requires confinement, isolation and introspection. However, far be it from her to suggest that the writer's and artist's mission is to selfishly shut themselves away in their own personal world. On the contrary, this act of isolation should encourage meditation and maturation, necessary conditions for any literary or artistic creation. Through this confinement, the author-demiurge first tries to repair himself, to come to terms with his wounds, and then to militate to free his fellow human beings from all kinds of injustice. He sees himself as a mediator between past and present, between East and West...