Abstract

This study sets out to analyse the memorial function performed by objects in the novel Hatim Sulaymà (Sulaymà’s Ring, 2022) by Rima Bali, a Syrian writer who has been a refugee in Madrid since 2016. After situating the work in the context of the «aesthetics of devastation» that have developed in post-2011 Syrian cultural production, I will focus on the narrative strategies through which the author dedicates herself to overcoming this fictional tendency. I will review in particular her use of magic realism to arbitrate between the urge to create a documentary archive of the Syrian conflict and the need to rebuild hope in the future, through the creative power of the imagination. The city of Aleppo emerges then as the real protagonist of this novel. The city becomes both a symbol of destruction and of reconstruction, rising from the ashes thanks to the magical powers of Sulaymà’s ring. This jewel rebuilds the links between past and future, activating memories and visions of a reality which - like the myth of al-Andalus – will serve to produce a discourse on the Syrian revolution different from that conveyed by the official narratives