La poétique de l‘abjection dans Les Trésors de la mer rouge (1971) de Romain Gary

Abstract

Written following a trip from Djibouti to Yemen, Romain Gary‘s travelogue The Treasures of the Red Sea (1971) has received limited critical attention to date. The text can be placed under the heading of abjection, which is expressed in a multitude of states and seems to govern almost all dimensions – political, social, historical, medical, hygienic – of life. Indeed, the former French Somaliland is depicted as a hypertrophied hell, populated by poor and hopeless people, human traffickers, mutilated women and lost souls. A few sacrificial figures feature, although they look more like Sisyphuses than Redeemers. The poignant reflection on the human condition triggered by this descent into hell that the narrator strives to get through, despite his emotions, in order to make it accessible to his reader, is eventually turned into an ars poetica. The aim of this article is to explore the poetics of abjection in this little-known text, as well as to reveal the mechanisms through which the latter becomes the starting point for a metaliterary reflection on the role of the writer and of literature.