Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Trauma and memory in Mathias Énard’s Zone

2017; Berghahn Books; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3828/jrs.2017.4

1752-2331

Claudia Jünke,

African history and culture studies

The article analyses the literary representation of trauma in Mathias Énard’s novel Zone. It shows how the author uses different narrative devices, such as the interior monologue or a particular time-space-structure, in order to present not only the individual and psychological trauma of a perpetrator but also the collective and cultural trauma of the Mediterranean region, a region haunted by the wars and violence of its historical past. In doing so, the novel presents the Mediterranean as a transnational and transcultural sphere characterized by the dialectics of civilization and barbarism.