Affekt, hybriditet og trans-figurasjon i Nina Bouraouis Garçon manqué

Abstract

In this reading of Nina Bouraoui’s auto-fictional novel Garçon manqué (2000), using Franz Fanon’s concepts of affectivity and hybridity, as well as Senghor’s notion of rhythm, I explore the narrator/protagonist Nina’s violent and turbulent journey from childhood to adulthood, caught in the transcultural conflict zone between France and Algeria. For Nina, it is above all the loss of her childhood friend, Amine, and their shared connection to the wild, beautiful and violent Algeria that causes her deep sense of melancholia. The young girl develops various strategies for survival in these precarious circumstances, one of them being gender travesty, by acting like a tomboy and assuming different masculine aliases. It is, however, the trans-figurative process of writing which becomes her main line of flight. Coming to terms with this loss of Amine and Algeria—through writing—Nina is eventually able to reconnect with her affectivity, and hence to embrace her own femininity and sexuality.