"We were in 2000 and I found Lebanon where I had lived for thirteen years, exactly, in violence that was none other than that of beauty.Of his loss and then his return.An intimate, elusive and dazzling beauty, "says Hortense, who settles in a convent in order to finish his thesis on a" family struck three times by suicide.While the young Claire, who arrives from Paris, joins her in order to assist her in this task, she is immediately sensitive and porous to the beauty of a landscape crossed by steep and mysterious valleys, on which themost intimate emotions."The storm rose in the interstices of the branches, crushed the crazy herbs, gave the valley a deeper sea, revealed in the day this invisible life which, coming from the depths, made the brown algae dance and cry the lichens.»»
In the new novel by Yasmine Khlat, the lady of Alexandria (Elyzad editions), nature accompanies the quest for Hortense and Claire, two women gathered around a family who has experienced the suffering and with whom they each havemore or less conscious links, which will gradually take on meaning in their respective trajectories.This improbable encounter is punctuated by the nuns' schedules and the padded framework of their building, whose reader will appreciate the delicate evocation.The silence of the muffled corridors, the diffuse smell of naphthaine, the heavy drape and stored with pastel and flowery curtains, where the promising scents of the refectory offer a double exile of this studied family, originally from Alexandria, forced to leave the'Egypt in a hasty way to settle in Lebanon then in France."Crystal vase, silver frame.Ball vase, numbered room.Clear clerk Marquadoir Clear inlaid.Half-moonly moonstanding mahogany table.»» Les deux femmes analysent la liste des objets vendus aux enchères par ceux qui ont dû quitter leur terre natale.
The art of Yasmine Khlat is in the evocative and suggestive scope of his writing, meticulous and carrying questions, which are increasingly pressing.The novel seems to take place on a tense line between two precipices, which threaten the characters themselves."Claire walked to the edge.She had one foot lower than the other.One foot on the land and the other where it was furniture, where the earth was crumbled.I heard a few pebbles roll and fall below.She was handling dangerously.I called him.»»
The lady of Alexandria tends towards the quest for an inaccessible and protean golden age, made up of smells, colors and feelings."Love is played in childhood, after we stand, we run after the shadows.We are blinded.We were dazzled.We are looking for what we sometimes lost too early.»» Découvre-t-on finalement qui est cette dame originaire d’Alexandrie ?
What is its link with these two women gathered by chance by the valley?What is obvious from the first pages of the novel is the aesthetics of composition of Yasmine Khlat, whose chapters resemble paintings swept by winds, clouds, shadows and affects."(...), because we were already ships in the storm, the swell enlivered our sizes, the valley bent in its darkness and its beauties, and the carillon of the bells resonated as far as they were no longer child, orpromises, nor tears of dawn.»»
« La dame d’Alexandrie»» (Elyzad, 2022) de Yasmine Khlat.Photo Dr.
« La perte du bain sensuel d’un pays, de son climat, de sa langue…»»
According to Yasmine Khlat, the enigmatic convent of his novel refers to one of his childhood memories."When I was a child, we went a few times to spend a vacation in a convent in Ajaltoun, and many images stayed.I have a certain tropism for convents, and then it is an ideal place for a closed door!There is a mysterious side of these places, and what is happening there.In this novel, I resumed you will tell me at dusk (La Revue Phenicienne, 2010), by reworking it and completing the outcome.Throughout the book, we are waiting for a revelation, there is this tension between the two characters, and this desire for Claire who is waiting for a Hortense word.She does not know which one, but she feels that there is a secret.In the first version, it was obvious that there was a family bond, but I had not been until then. Pour moi, c’était important que mon roman soit republié, car c’est celui que je préfère parmi les six ouvrages que j’ai écrits»», précise la romancière de sa voix légèrement voilée.
The foundation of the narration is based on the link between the two women. « Chacune a une personnalité très forte, et une dimension fascinante, surtout dans ce rapport entre elles, cette dépendance qui s’installe, et l’attitude d’Hortense, qui peut varier d’une minute à l’autre, qui est parfois aimable, parfois un peu méprisante, il y a tout un jeu»», poursuit celle qui a reçu le Prix des cinq continents pour la francophonie en 2001.
As in Egypt 51 (Elyzad, 2019) or this love (Elyzad, 2020), the question of suicide crosses the inner world of characters."Without going into details, in my family, there was a lot of suffering.I needed to express this in my work.Suicide is an act that has incredible repercussions on relatives first because it is very violent in itself.And that induces enormous guilt: one wonders if we could have saved it or save it.In the novel, the two women are looking for the causes of suicide, and they come across this idea that there may be exile. Il n’y a donc pas que l’enfermement familial, que cette souffrance qui tourne en rond, il y a aussi une cause sociale»», analyse celle qui a commencé sa carrière dans le cinéma.
"The dispersion, the loss of the first social and family fabric in the broad sense, the loss of the usual benchmarks, the sensual bath of a country, its climate, its language, the loss of places, or even objects which were to usDear, the establishment of spatial distances that change the situation, all of this weakens of course, and makes more vulnerable in the face of family toxicity.And his possible abandonment.»» Telle est l’une des hypothèses des deux héroïnes, dont la rencontre est éminemment romanesque.As in diamondary (threshold, 2006), it is from the surprising relationship between two characters that the most intimate revelations come."This serves as a catalyst for the expression of very important things that go up to the surface of the characters;Claire and Hortense do not know each other, they remain mysterious for each other.Hortense is intrigued by Claire's interest in her thesis, and she also wonders where her family is and why she does not call them. Elles sont dans cette méconnaissance de l’autre, et en même temps le lien est de plus en plus fort»», relève l’auteure.
And to add: "There are families where there are dysfunctions, that is to say family suffering, a pathology of the group, and sometimes this pathology can be concentrated in a precise being, which takes it inload, until he disappears and that another takes his place: this is what is discussed in this novel.Claire is suddenly taken from a very strong desire not to stick to the writing of the thesis, she tells herself that if this destructive mechanism is not stopped, someone is in danger, and the linetension is there. Mais par moments, on se demande si ce n’est pas l’une d’elles qui est en danger»», explique doucement Yasmine Khlat.It is in the silence of a mountain whose laces streets slide towards the sea, where one unexpectedly switch from dawn to twilight, that two women will face the darkness of the being and the beauty of the world,Throughout a narrow heartbreaking text.
