International Journal of Francophone Studies
Volume 15, Issue 2, 2012, Pages 237-255

'L'écriture qui saigne': Exile and wounding in the narratives of Nina Bouraoui and Linda Lê (Article)

Leek S.E.*
  • a School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, United Kingdom

Abstract

This article offers a critical analysis of the articulation of wounds in two recent exile narratives: Nina Bouraoui's Mes mauvaises pensées (2005) and Linda Lê's In Memoriam (2007). Arguing for a new understanding of exile as a form of repetition compulsion, in which trauma is repeatedly revisited and restaged in writing, the article investigates the frequent references to different kinds of wounds, both literal and imagined, physical and psychical, which emerge from these experimental texts. The analysis focuses on two specific aspects: first, drawing on the theoretical work of Kathryn Robson and Cathy Caruth, which highlights the difficulty of articulating traumatic experience (and the wounds which result), it considers why these exile narratives so frequently resort to the use of such violent, bodily imagery; second, it investigates the notion of scriptotherapy in order to evaluate the very different accounts of the relationship between writing and the wounds of exile which emerge from these texts. © 2012 Intellect Ltd.

Author Keywords

Scriptotherapy Compulsion Repetition Wounds Exile trauma

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84871644958&doi=10.1386%2fijfs.15.2.237_1&partnerID=40&md5=acb25e1f5d18547164bde417b57198f2

DOI: 10.1386/ijfs.15.2.237_1
ISSN: 13682679
Cited by: 2
Original Language: English