Since the “archival turn” propelled by Jacques Derrida’s influential book (Mal d’archive: une impression freudienne, 1995), the archive has partially lost its traditional association with the ideas of a faithful mirroring of reality and reliable preservation of national memory. Rather, attention has been drawn to the archive’s censorious and prescriptive power. Such an epistemological shift has triggered a concrete response in post-apartheid South Africa, leading to a conception of the “archive” as a provisional and ever-shifting construction where gaps, tampering, and expunging are brought into play. In this connection, history and narrative enter into dialogue within the creative space of literature and provide new ways of approaching personal and collective experiences while forging alternative strategies capable of conveying and consolidating cultural memory. If the “transitional literature” (1990-1999) tended to focus on apartheid’s recent history, “post-transitional” texts often go back to the older colonial era, so as to foreground the ideological and political codes of official historiography and disclose the unheard “archive of the Other”. This article analyses how André Brink’s novel The Other Side of Silence (2002) tries to envision a “democratisation” of the colonial archive by lending ear to a woman’s marginalised voice. A magical realist text, this novel draws on archival fragments in order to creatively re-imagine them through fantasy and storytelling. By intertwining memory and imagination, the narrator-archivist creates a sort of “counter-archive” which addresses the issues of ethical and political responsibility while also looking to future possibilities.
Re-immaginare l'archivio, ricostruire la memoria: The Other Side of Silence di André Brink
Linda Fiasconi
2021-01-01
Abstract
Since the “archival turn” propelled by Jacques Derrida’s influential book (Mal d’archive: une impression freudienne, 1995), the archive has partially lost its traditional association with the ideas of a faithful mirroring of reality and reliable preservation of national memory. Rather, attention has been drawn to the archive’s censorious and prescriptive power. Such an epistemological shift has triggered a concrete response in post-apartheid South Africa, leading to a conception of the “archive” as a provisional and ever-shifting construction where gaps, tampering, and expunging are brought into play. In this connection, history and narrative enter into dialogue within the creative space of literature and provide new ways of approaching personal and collective experiences while forging alternative strategies capable of conveying and consolidating cultural memory. If the “transitional literature” (1990-1999) tended to focus on apartheid’s recent history, “post-transitional” texts often go back to the older colonial era, so as to foreground the ideological and political codes of official historiography and disclose the unheard “archive of the Other”. This article analyses how André Brink’s novel The Other Side of Silence (2002) tries to envision a “democratisation” of the colonial archive by lending ear to a woman’s marginalised voice. A magical realist text, this novel draws on archival fragments in order to creatively re-imagine them through fantasy and storytelling. By intertwining memory and imagination, the narrator-archivist creates a sort of “counter-archive” which addresses the issues of ethical and political responsibility while also looking to future possibilities.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
