The trace, the loss, the rest: the figuration of the family album in photoliterary work of autofiction A cena interior-fatos, by Marcel Cohen
Intermediality. Photoliterary. Autofiction. A cena interior-fatos, by Marcel Cohen.
This dissertation aims to analyze the figuration of the family album in the photoliterary autofiction book A cena interior-fatos (2017), by Marcel Cohen. To this end, we understand that the organization of the book occurs with the engendering of word and image that produces the aesthetic effect of reading as if we had a photo album. This is configured in the narrative based on the attempt of Marcel, a Jewish Turkish author, to reconstitute a family life, since at the age of five and a half, during the Second World War, he witnessed a good part of his family being deported to Auschwitz, when they still lived on Boulevard de Courcelles, in Paris. In this sense, this work, considered here as photoliterary, is made up of facts collected throughout the author-narrator's life, as well as reproductions and descriptions of photographs of his family members and objects relating to his parents. The narrative, thus, emerges through the reciprocal relationship between writing and image, also faced with the flickering of Marcel's memories, a character who, when reminiscing, oscillates between reality and fiction, which in our understanding borders on the autofiction genre, as he, in the absence of a moment lived with his family, starts to fable a daily life and a family life. The pages marked by the flickering of retrospection and the weight of loss are supported by the traces of writing and photography and make up the family album A cena interior-fatos, in addition to demanding the Cohen family's right to memory, it prevails in its Marcel's desire to live a life with his loved ones, even in the limited space of the book.