This article offers an analysis of two theater texts which have in common, on the one hand, that they were born following a commitment to helping migrants, and on the other hand, that they specifically address the notions of solidarity and repression. We study the way in which these notions are represented: solidarity retrospectively in witnessed form, repression at the heart of the drama but defused by a poetic or comic hybridity. Constructed in this way, these works invite to formulate an engaged reflection on the modes of action of helping migrants.

At the same time as state borders are being re-established to stem migratory flows, many international authors and artists are taking an interest in the subject of migration, focusing on the representation of the movement of migrants towards Europe. They aim to reveal what lies behind the walls, barbed wire, and migration statistics, and to grasp the human dimension of this phenomenon. Artistic and literary works have become the preferred medium for expressing the unease, brutality, and inequality that the modern border represents. The article examines how the representation of the border mechanism modifies the imaginary of migration, particularly the figure of the migrant, often stereotyped and marginalised. It explores how contemporary literature and art take part in this storytelling through the representation of the border artefact, and what space the migrant is destined to occupy between the real and the fictional, the world and the imaginary.

The aim is to propose a gendered sociopoetic reading of Honorine, a short novel by Balzac. By focusing on the garden, where the novel’s eponymous protagonist takes refuge after leaving her husband for a lover who soon abandons her, Balzac brings into play a set of period representations of the flower woman and this place of sociability that the century has consecrated. A novel of manners about conjugality, Honorine reveals the mechanisms of a woman’s tragic downfall, as she fails to renew stereotypes: the garden of Saint-Maur, far from being a space of freedom, functions as a cage or trap.

This article explores James Baldwin’s migratory experience in Paris through the lens of the sociopoetics of migration, analyzing how his exile, both present and inherited, shaped his literary, social, and identity perspectives. As a Black and Queer man, Baldwin found in France a space of freedom where he could question race, sexuality, and oppression, distanced from the direct pressures of North American society. However, his migration was not merely a physical displacement; it also constituted an inner exile, fostering a constant tension between attachment and rejection of the United States. While he regarded France as a literary refuge, he did not idealize it, becoming aware of structural racism inherited from the country’s colonial past and developing a deep empathy for other migrant populations. The article examines how Baldwin transformed the emotions of exile – such as solitude, frustration, and nostalgia – into a creative force and a critical tool against marginalization.

This proposal focuses on contemporary reinterpretations of the tragedy Antigone, highlighting their relationship with the representation of the migratory phenomenon. The aim is to study the mythical figure of Antigone, reinterpreted in contemporary contexts and understood as a symbol of migration. From a sociopoetic perspective, it will be interesting to examine how the mythic elements of the tragedy are updated to give voice to migrants and to the challenges they face, first during their journey and then within the host society.

This contribution traces the evolution of the concept of migrant literature, moving from an author-centric to a text-centric approach, and ultimately to its redefinition as “new world literature.” In a postmigrant era, this concept seems to have fulfilled its purpose. The article reflects on the role of migrant literature in a postmigrant society, where migration is no longer viewed as an exceptional phenomenon but as an inherent characteristic of contemporary societies. It questions the current relevance of this critical category within a literary landscape shaped by the diversity of narratives and trajectories, and invites us to rethink analytical frameworks in light of the transformation of social and cultural contexts linked to human mobility.

Ovid’s exile in Tomis (8-17 CE) engenders a poetic and existential metamorphosis. His relegatio – prompted by a carmen (Ars Amatoria) and an ambiguous error – becomes a creative matrix. From the Tristia to the Epistulae ex Ponto, he transforms lamentation into a literary exploration of alterity, intertwining myth and marginal experience. Contre Ibis radicalizes this process through invective, recasting exile as poetic combat. Ovid constructs a new literary persona, interrogating center/periphery dynamics. His work establishes exile as a space of reinvention where language compensates for territorial loss. This approach anticipates contemporary migrant literatures, demonstrating how exclusion can be reconfigured as creative potential, transmuting dispossession into literary power.

This article examines two typical figures of migration that Fatou Diome uses in her novels: “l’homme de Barbès” and “celles qui restent”. These figures reflect the complexity of the migrant subject, caught up or trapped in a proxemic trajectory that compels them to self-sacrifice within an “economy of kinship.” Through these characters, the analysis highlights the tensions between mobility and attachment, between departure and waiting. These figures also make it possible to construct a portrait of the exile from the point of view of women, anchored in the representations of the society of departure. The article thus offers a reading of migratory dynamics through these two literary figures, which reveal the affective, social, and political stakes linked to migration.

Representations of migration in contemporary poetry emphasize the motive of displacement and its consequences, most often inhuman. Nevertheless, through the various functions it assumes, this poetry can also lead to the emancipation of lyrical subjects, questioning the migrant identity. These redefinitions also intersect questions about the very place of migration in contemporary societies and its repercussions on the understanding of the contemporary world. The article proposes a reading of contemporary poetry as a space of tension between denunciation and reinvention, where migrant voices are not limited to complaint but contribute to a reconfiguration of poetic language. By articulating individual experience and collective scope, this poetry interrogates the imaginaries of mobility and the forms of subjectivation it makes possible.