Flashes Between the Lines. Photography and Migrant Writing

Abstract

This article traces the evolution of the word / image relationship, which has become tangible with the appearance of photo-texts. Despite illustrious, albeit discontinuous, antecedents which date back to the iconotexts of the Late Middle Ages and include modern illustrations, satirical cartoons and nineteenth- and twentieth-century comics, photo-texts have attracted the attention of readers especially since the 1980s, when criticism began to lay the basis for considering it a genre in its own right. Since William Morris coined the term in 1972, visual arts and literature experts, such as Hollander, Trachtenberg, Shawcross, Barthes, Montandon and, more recently, Michele Cometa, have indeed analyzed the rhetorical forms used in this ambiguously hybrid art form which is dually distinguished by writing and light - that suspended instant of pure contingency captured by the photograph. Their pioneer investigations have singled out the recurring features of this art form and contributed to the definition of the genre, which is still in progress. In light of the special importance that visual elements play in migrant writing, this article attempts to identify some of the theoretical categories common to both phototexts and migrant literary works, where the autobiographical element is strengthened through the use of photographs, postcards or cut-out recipes. It is indeed in the narrations of migrants, which are always conditioned by the memory of the past and the need to bear witness to personal and collective tragic vicissitudes, that the close correlation between image and text emerges most prominently and perfectly in sync with the features of photo-texts. By virtue of their expertise in the field, the present study enter the void between photography and narration which is filled by the reader’s imagination. It provides interesting insights.