A la périphérie

Dilcha and Bilo left the countryside to settle on the hill of angels and djinns, near the big city. Poisoned by waste from the nearby factory, the neighbourhood is gradually turning into a shantytown. Twenty years later, at the foot of a new factory just as toxic, Tamar and Azad are lulled into dreaming by the ‘Sultana of the Ring Road’, an icon of populist television. In their neighbourhood, which is under constant threat of demolition, the two young people cling to the hope of leaving in turn. And so they leave. Sedef Ecer writes of exile and uprooted identity. Stories, times, parallel worlds: On the Outskirts alternates between action and narrative to deliver a raw, unvarnished account, charged with emotion and humour. ‘The beauty of the play lies in that naïve determination which drives the two young people to hold on to hope despite the harshness of their ordeal. Violence is not glossed over, and the condemnation is unambiguous. Yet the characters maintain a sort of fatalistic detachment, and the use of metaphor distances the play from sordid realism, imbuing it with the grace of an oriental tale. ” (Gilles Boulan) À la périphérie was written as part of the Writers’ Residency programme in Île-de-France  and won the Guérande Playwriting Prize in 2011.