Reconsidering Identity Formation Processes in Fictions of Migration: Narrative Subjectivity in Rabih Alameddine’s I, the Divine

This chapter investigates the processes of identity formation in experimental novels of migration. Counter to the demands and expectations that our contemporary society presents to people on the move, and to the way their stories are narrated, this chapter demonstrates how contemporary fiction of migration is interested in subverting linearity, coherence, and consistency in stories of migration. Adinolfi draws on the critical posthumanities to introduce the concept of narrative subjectivity, which designates the organizational processes behind the narration of the self in some contemporary novels of migration. The analysis of the fictional memoir I, the Divine by Rabih Alameddine exemplifies how narrative subjectivity emerges from the constant rearrangement and reevaluation of narrative materials that foreground the interrelatedness, the fluidity, and the porosity of the subject.