"Un point d'interrogation qui se veut écriture" : Gatti's Maze

Abstract

The paper looks at Armand Gatti's work on the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland through an examination of two plays, Le Labyrinthe (1982) and Le Labyrinthe tel qu'il a été écrit par les habitants de l'histoire de Derry (1983), and a major essay, "La route d'Irlande," which appeared in his monumental work, La Parole errante, published in 1999. It first presents the nuts and bolts of Gatti's writing style, before going on to examine the profound differences in his sensitivity to and understanding of the "two traditions" in the North of Ireland. The paper points to the richness of Gatti's exploration of the contemporary political debate within the nationalist community but demonstrates how the unionist community receives surprisingly short shrift.