Être comme des arbres, être comme des zombies
Ken Bugul’s Cacophonie offers up a model for earthly survival (sur-vie) that encourages us to be like trees, whose bodies are made of dead and spiraling living tissues. This article explores the connections between the bodies of trees and gestures of hope through remembrance, spirituality, and an ec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Pléiade (EA 7338)
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Itinéraires |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/15534 |
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| Summary: | Ken Bugul’s Cacophonie offers up a model for earthly survival (sur-vie) that encourages us to be like trees, whose bodies are made of dead and spiraling living tissues. This article explores the connections between the bodies of trees and gestures of hope through remembrance, spirituality, and an ecological approach to death. It also ties Bugul’s sylvipoetics to personal reflection. The story of Sali’s decision to declare herself deceased becomes entangled with the survival narratives of migrants, voodoo practice, and remembrance of the Transatlantic slave trade. Like these entanglements, the mango tree and the traveler’s palm tree live an intertwined life within the house’s walls and blend into pre-colonial sacred forests, the iroko of a botanical gardens, the Congolese forest and the baobabs of Senegal. Bugul’s novel is also connected to tree-shaped placentas and to the placenterre, a way of thinking and being that connects the origins and the final resting place. |
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| ISSN: | 2427-920X |