غادة السمان في رحلاتھا أو كیف یصبح الجسد حقیبة سفر
A JOURNEY OF ĠĀDA AS-SAMMĀN OR HOW THE BODY BECOMES A SUITCASE

Summary/Abstract: In a book entitled ”The Body is a Suitcase” Ġāda as-Sammān publishes narratives from places visited by her in the years 1964-1976. In the form of essays and reportages, she describes European and Arab cities, including many capitals. These materials that resulted finally in the abovementioned 520-page book had been earlier published separately in two Lebanese journals and one of them also in a Kuwaiti journal. In her works Ġ. as-Sammān do not focuses on descriptions of visited places but she shows noteworthy and often surprising phenomena or cases that should be interesting for the curious Arab reader. She picks untypical traditions and titbits referring to the daily life of the European societies and correlates them with Arabian traditions. The aim of this paper is to analyse the concept of journey in terms of Ġāda as-Sammān works and destabilisation as a consequence of the journey. Ġ. as-Sammān herself declares that destabilisation instigates the people to think. Therefore, during her journey she contemplates many important issues relevant to the cultural and political life of Arabs. Language used by the author is very colourful so in this paper it also forms an area of investigation. It is worth noticing that sometimes Ġ. as-Sammān’s works are full of metaphors and beautiful expressions adeptly and tastefully used by the author. On the other hand, some of her essays are written in simple language and can be understood directly – the conclusion is that Ġāda as-Sammān’s main goal was to make her works get to the broadest audience possible.

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