Une vieillesse en fleur : les rides du vivant chez Ananda Devi

Abstract

Among all the slippages of the existence which produce exclusion and exclusivity at the same time, the old age constitutes a paradoxical way of traveling the living world to put to the test the dynamic capacity of regeneration and recreation. Thus, the reflux of humanity that stirs Mauritian female writer Ananda Devi's typical imaginary of her marginalized characters, relies on their abilities to interact with their age, without making it a static accessory of the narrative but rather a resource to be explored. In this context of destabilizing points of view, Les jours vivants (Gallimard, 2013) explores, in a singular way, how old age can reshape life – and become a form of resistance – by drawing on the “the primary and primordial energy that is nature” (p. 180), in particular by the means of the vegetal which, according to our thesis, would capture the desire to exist beyond the constraints of the “last age”.