Autobiographical Elements in Ibtisam Tracy’s Novels Between 2004 and 2017

Abstract

 This research addresses the presence of the autobiography in the novels of the Syrian writer Ibtisam Trissy, published between 2004 and 2017, and reveals the autobiographical components in the specified novelistic models, as they are the most important elements shaping her narrative world, where the real intermingles with the imaginary, the personal with the collective, and the individual with the national. The writer does not present her biography directly; rather, she reinterprets it through fictional characters and imagined events, which often allude to real events she experienced or to people who were part of her life.

The study analyzed a number of novels, including: 'Ein Al-Shams', 'Ghawayat Al-Ma', 'Mudun Al-Yamam', 'La'nat Al-Kadmyoum', 'Al-Shari' 24 Shimalan', 'Salam Ila Al-Sama', and 'Banat Lahlouha'. It highlights the autobiographical components represented by the following contents: birth (its date and place), childhood, cultural formation, profession, political stance, motherhood, participation in the Syrian revolution, and displacement. These contents indicate that the writer reworked her autobiography in an indirect way, transforming personal experiences into artistic symbols through memory to express the human presence of the Syrian woman in the face of repressive reality and major social and political transformations.