Transgenerational Exile in Abla Farhoud’s Autofiction

Chapter Seven offers an alternative perspective to francophone postcolonial literature and culture by examining the specific case of Quebec, the postcolonial status of which has been contested in recent years. This chapter thus contributes to the decentring of exilic literature by examining literary experiences of exile beyond metropolitan France. The chapter analyses the intersections between ageing, education, and exile in Lebanese-born writer Abla Farhoud’s autofictional works. Adopting a comparative approach between the texts, I trace exile over different generations of female characters as they are depicted in Toutes celles que j’étais (2015) and Au grand soleil cachez vos filles (2017), questioning how women at different life stages, who have inevitably received differing levels of education, experience geographic and metaphorical exile as a form of estrangement. Farhoud’s autofiction is yet to be examined critically given its recent publication date. This chapter, therefore, makes an important contribution to scholarship on Farhoud’s writing.