Phototext and Migrant Identity in Ady, soleil noir by Gisèle Pineau

Abstract

Gisèle Pineau, one of the most prominent voices in the literature of the French Antilles, explores in her works the tensions of the Afro-descendant diaspora, the migratory experience, and the condition of women in the former French colonies, in the line of postcolonial Francophone literature. This article analyzes her novel Ady, soleil noir (2021), awarded the Prix du Roman Historique, as a postcolonial phototext that revisits the forgotten figure of Adrienne Fidelin, a Guadeloupean dancer and model associated with Surrealism and the famous photographer Man Ray in the Thirties. Narrated in the first person, the narrative follows Ady’s journey as an orphan who leaves Guadeloupe for Paris, where she faces exile and marginalisation, but also gains access to an artistic universe in which she redefines her identity. The thirteen photographs inserted into the narrative structure create a visual journey that accompanies the main character, offering a reflection on female and diasporic identity. In this way, the novel constructs a literary and photographic archive that connects the dynamics of individual and collective memory. The research is based on two hypotheses: (1) Pineau uses the phototext device as an intersemiotic narrative form to produce a counter-narrative of colonial history; (2) Ady’s voice, although fictional, represents a strategy of identification that allows the author to transpose her own experience of creoleness and uprootedness to the protagonist. By comparing Pineau to the theoretical context of visual studies and phototext studies (Mitchell, Cometa, Cortellessa, Nachtergael), the article shows how Ady, soleil noir recovers a marginalized figure and constructs a phototext that challenges the colonial gaze, without however erasing its ambivalences.