Le récit de survivance de Serge Amisi : modalités d’adaptation textuelle et stratégies d’ajustement

Abstract

Abstract In the narrative of survival, Souvenez-vous de moi, l’enfant de demain (2011), Serge Amisi, former child soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1997 to 2011, recounts his story of forced recruitment in Kabila’s rebel troops. A hybrid text that pushes the boundaries between fiction as well as historical and personal truth, this testimony turns out to be a privileged writing space where the social and psychic reconstruction of the narrator can be achieved. In the first part, the article explores Amisi’s singular and powerful writing which blurs the lines between reality and fiction. In the second part, the paper demonstrates how Amisi summons his memory to restore the coping mechanisms which allowed him to adapt to the living conditions around him or to face the barbaric punishments while taking a childlike look at a dehumanizing historical reality.