Patterns of Dialogue in Sinan Antoon's Fihris

Abstract

Dialogue is one of the most important narrative tools contributing to the construction of the contemporary Iraqi novel. It has become an artistic means capable of reshaping collective memory after the occupation through literary methods and new narrative forms. Sinan Antoon's novel *Fihris*, with its dialogic nature, possesses a remarkable ability to present a worldview by relying on dialogue to reveal the social fragmentation resulting from the accumulation of conflicts between the self and the other. While there are several aspects of dialogue that can be explored in this research, the central question is: how does dialogue contribute to the novel's narrative and intellectual structure? Therefore, the research problem stems from the need to understand the dialogic structure and necessitates demonstrating the artistic role of dialogue in revealing the characters' consciousness within a narrative space that enriches the text, imbues it with vitality, and brings it closer to reality.