Writing: The Question as Revolt in Kristeva and Boochani

Abstract

Writing offers a privileged access to the culture of revolt, a kind of radical questioning that has the potential to unsettle illegitimate forms of authority and sense. Writing bequeaths a future and a society capable of creative thought, and this is all important in societies where questioning and critical thought is increasingly under threat. This work explores the importance of writing in relation to questioning and revolt in two markedly different contexts: in Julia Kristeva’s celebration of the European tradition of revolt and dissent, and in Behrouz Boochani’s literary revolt against the illegitimate incarceration of refugees in Manus Prison. If Kristeva is correct and European culture is, in part, a culture of the question and of revolt, then what does this mean for the non-European world? Boochani’s writing offers a powerful contemporary response to this question, a response that positions the suffering body as a locus of protest and resistance.