The quest for identity through bodily pain: Female abjection in the literary work of Igiaba Scego

Abstract

Abstract This article addresses how (cultural) identity in Igiaba Scego’s literary works is achieved through a struggle of bodily pain. Narrating from a female point of view, Scego explores in depth the female migrant condition which in her texts is accentuated by the migrant body’s diversity and subsequent enhanced visibility. When reading Scego’s literary work, the conflictual relationship that many of her protagonists have with notions such as identity and cultural belonging is striking. Her protagonists’ autoanalytical questioning and lack of unity in terms of identity sometimes results in painful and self-inflicted bodily expressions, and this paper’s analysis of Scego’s hybrid and suffering protagonists is based on readings of the novels Oltre Babilonia (2008) and La mia casa è dove sono (2010), as well as the short story ‘Salsicce’ (2005a).