Place and the (trans) formation of self-identity in Ezzedine Fishere’s Farah’s Story

Abstract

Place is a field that is related to various disciplines like geography, sociology, psychology, environment and literature among others. In this interdisciplinary study, place attachment and place identity and their correlation with self –identity (its formation and transformation) are being traced to reveal that similar to real life powerful place experiences that influence one’s identity, literary place experiences have deep ramifications on a literary work’s characters. Borrowing theories from geography and Social Psychology, Edward Relph’s phenomenology of place with its vast array of levels of insideness and outsideness, together with Glynis Breakwell’s Identity Process Theory are employed to closely follow Ezzedine Fishere’s Farah in his latest literary production Farah’s Story (2021). Although Farah’s childhood attachment to place form her conformant identity, later powerful place experiences transform her into an iron-willed rebellious woman who rejects all forms of attachment or authority.