Disarray and Belonging in Transnational Literary Spaces: Image and Identity in Abdellah Taïa’s Celui qui est digne d’être aimé

Abstract

This article examines processes of postcolonial self-definition in Moroccan francophone author Abdellah Taïa's novel Celui qui est digne d'être aimé (2017) through an imagological framework. Drawing on both classical and recent developments in imagology, the study analyses auto-images (Morocco), hetero-images (France), and meta-images —understood as representations shaped by how one believes the Other perceives the Self— as they emerge across the novel's four epistolary chapters. Situated within Maghrebi francophone literature as a transnational space of migration, the analysis explores how colonial power dynamics persist in intimate relationships, shaping the migrant subject's capacity for self-determination. The findings suggest that, while traditional oppositional imagological frameworks remain analytically relevant in migrant and postcolonial contexts, the incorporation of the meta-image as a unit of analysis allows for a more nuanced reading of hybrid and liminal identities, and opens up the possibility of imagining migrant in-between spaces as sites for emergent forms of communal belonging.