Geographies of Subjugation: Bordering Processes and the Creation of the Other in Fadia Faqir’s Willow Trees Don’t Weep

Ahmed Ben Amara

(University of Sfax)

Abstract

This paper examines Fadia Faqir’s novel Willow Trees Don’t Weep (2014) through the lens of critical border theory. The protagonist’s repeated encounters with territorial borders, together with the narrative’s shifting geopolitical landscapes, underscore the centrality of borders as the novel’s master trope. Yet, instead of viewing borders as neutral spatial demarcations, this study argues that they function as sites of violence and exclusion, reinforcing socio-cultural inequalities and geopolitical power imbalances. Through a close reading of the novel’s recurring images of limits, thresholds, and boundaries, the analysis shows how various forms of oppression – patriarchal, ideological, and postcolonial – operate through different bordering processes that shape the protagonist’s identity and sense of agency. It further argues that the interplay of topographical and symbolic borders enables dominant power structures to lock individuals and groups into distinct categories, systematically excluding them from global networks of free movement. Ultimately, the analysis reveals the contradiction between the promise of a ‘borderless world’ and the continued proliferation of both physical and symbolic borders for marginalized populations.