Transposed Modes

Abstract

This chapter examines three recent works of fiction by Francophone writers that represent with pressing detail the dilemmas faced by migrants who risk everything in an attempt to reach northern shores. The reasons behind these departures are multiple, but most migrants are motivated by more than simplified facts. There is something driving many of these individuals that goes beyond their dire circumstances and speaks to their imaginary in such a powerful way that they are prone to keep trying, even when they are repeatedly deflected from reaching their geographical goals. This tendency to remain fixated with the desired destination is exemplified in Fabienne Kanor’s Faire l’aventure (2014), a novel featuring plurilingual passages and musical moments that have much in common with similar innovative techniques in Nathacha Appanah’s Tropique de la violence (2016) and Fatou Diome’s Celles qui attendent (2010). Taken together, these current migratory texts disrupt a linear sense of progression and reveal that many migrants are denied the possibility of reaching the finish line of their dreams and are condemned to circle back, again and again, until the place where the race began becomes the final note.