Détails de l’article

This study investigates the representation of postcolonial trauma and the disintegration of feminine identity in This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga, through an aesthetic framework rooted in cinematic language. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the research draws upon trauma theory, feminist literary criticism, and intermedial studies to explore how the novel resists traditional narrative structures. It examines how Dangarembga employs experimental techniques second-person narration, bodily fragmentation, temporal discontinuities, and visual staging not merely to describe trauma, but to embody and enact it within the text. The analysis revolves around four principal thematic axes: the body as a visual and cinematic object; narrative fragmentation as a marker of traumatic memory; the distanced narrative voice as a manifestation of dissociation; and intermediality as a feminist strategy that challenges dominant aesthetics of representation. Central to this enquiry is the portrayal of the wounded body, which becomes a site of memory, vulnerability, and resistance through formal disruption. By rejecting realism’s expectations of coherence and closure, the novel constructs a hybrid literary space that fuses text, image, and performance. Ultimately, the study argues that intermediality offers a compelling critical framework for understanding the intersections between corporeality, narrative form, and gendered memory in contemporary African fiction.