«MEMORY IS THE STONE OF SISYPHUS. WHO AM I? AHMED OR AMEDEO?». AMARA LAKHOUS: THE SELF-FRAGMENTATION

Abstract

Amara Lakhous, an author of Algerian origin, represents a singular character of transcultural writing in Italian language, as expression of numerous dimensions, linguistic choices and dislocations, which create a dynamic, contaminated and Creole linguistic-cultural identity. This essay aims to analyze, on a narrative, hermeneutic, semiotic, and linguistic-stylistic level, Scontro di civiltà per un ascensore a Piazza Vittorio, a noir unique in its genre, in that it is a self-translation of a previous version written in Arabic, which shows, through its multifocality, the identity fragmentation. The intention is to bring out the identity image of the migrant writer, apparently unaltered, but in reality deeply split and poised between past and present, memory and oblivion, truth and fiction. A state of disorientation and alienation that finds a sort of composition in the so-called "howls", spaces of reflection and reconstitution of emotions that the author gives to Ahmed/Amedeo, a character who represents an intense interior conflict, typical of those who cannot find their own place and dimension in the world.

Keywords: Creolization; Displacement; Identity; Memory; Transculturalism.