Testimonials: Comparative Interpretations of Primo Levi, Anne Frank, Immaculée Ilibagiza and Michel Laub

Abstract

In contemporary narrative several themes and knowledges constitute essential fields of reflection to Literary Theory. This essay aims to reflect on the issue of “testimonial literature”, relating this theme to the works If this is a man by Primo Levi and The Diary of Anne Frank, in order to draw parallels with the testimonial narration of Immaculéé Ilibagiza (2008), a Rwandan holocaust survivor, and of a character in Michel Laub’s A maçã envenenada. In our proposal, it is essential to discuss the problem of the testimony in postwar fiction and its relation with contemporary literature, also analyzing its memorial feature, and aspects of the traumatic writing according to Márcio Seligmann-Silva. With the aid of a theoretical apparatus composed by contemporary critics who investigate the notion of testimony, we establish a brief study on the abovementioned issues that are urgent and current in contemporary narrative, especially in the case of the four writers that we highlight.